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ST.   JOHN'S  CHAPEL,    FROM   THE  BACKS. 


THE 

BABE, 

B.A. 


tbe  ^Uneventful  tnstorp. 
of  a  H?oung  <5entleman  at 
Cambri&ge  THniversftp. 


BY 


EDWARD  F.  BENSON 

Author  of  "  Dodo,"  "  The  Rubicon,"  etc. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET  34  BEDFORD  STREET,  STRAND 


COPYRIGHT,  1896 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  London 


Ube  ftntcfeerbocfeer  press,  Hew  loth 


DEDICATION. 


DEAR  TOBY.- 

It  is  fitting,  and  I  hope  you  will  not  feel 
it  otherwise,  that  your  name  should  appear 
on  the  forefront  of  this  little  book,  for  you 
know  best  how  much  good  humour  went  to 
the  making  of  it,  and  how  when  it  was  read 
piecemeal,  as  it  was  written,  to  you,  your 
native  politeness,  which  I  cannot  admire 
too  much,  more  than  once  prompted  you  to 
laugh.  (Advt.)  You  will  remember,  too >, 
when  I  first  mentioned  the  idea  of  it  to  you, 
that  with  some  solemnity  we  procured  a 
large  sheet  of  foolscap  paper,  and  a  blue 
pencil,  and  then  and  there  set  ourselves  to 
put  down  all  the  remarkable  and  stirring 
events  which  happened  to  us  in  those  four 
years  we  spent  together  at  Cambridge  ;  how 
we  failed  egregiously  to  recollect  anything 
remarkable  or  stirring — pardon  me,  we  re- 
membered one  stirring  event,  but  decided 
not  to  treat  the  world  to  it — which  had 


2134544 


iv  Dedication. 

come  within  our  personal  experience,  and 
thereupon  cast,  or  as  you  said,  "  speired" 
about  for  any  remarkable  and  stirring  in- 
cident, which  had  happened,  not,  alas,  to 
us,  but  to  anybody  else  soever.  Here  again 
I  may  recall  to  you  that  we  dreiv  blank, 
and  our  sheet  of  paper  was  still  virgin 
white,  our  blue  pencil  as  sharp  as  ever,  and 
the  book  no  nearer  conception  than  before. 

Then  it  was  that  the  uncomfortable  con- 
viction dawned  on  us,  gradually  illuminat- 
ing oitr  minds  as  some  cloudy  rain-slanted 
morning  grows  clear  to  half-wakened  eyes, 
that  in  the  majority  of  cases,  remarkable 
and  stirring  events  do  not  befall  the  under- 
graduate, and  that  if  the  book  was  to  be 
made  at  all,  it  must  be  made  of  homely, 
and  I  hope  wholesome,  ingredients,  a  cricket 
ball,  a  canoe,  a  football,  a  tripos,  a  don,  a 
croquet  mallet,  a  few  undergraduates,  a 
Greek  play,  some  work,  and  so  forth.  For 
it  seemed  to  us  that  the  superficial  enquirer 
— and  you,  I  vow,  are  even  more  super- 
Jicially-minded  than  I— finds  that  these 
things  are  common  to  the  experience  of  most 
men,  but  that  when  you  begin  to  deal  in 


Dedication.  v 

spiritualities,  heroes,  century-making  cap- 
tains of  eleven,  chess  blues,  and  higher 
aspirations,  you  desert  the  normal  plane 
for  the  super-normal,  where  people  like 
you  and  me  have  no  business  to  intrude. 

So  that,  now  it  is  complete,  you  will  find 
therein  neither  births,  deaths,  nor  marri- 
ages, and  though  the  Babe  himself  may  have 
waxed  a  little  out  of  proportion  to  our 
original  scheme — he  ought,  for  instance, 
never  to  have  played  Rugby  for  his  Uni- 
versity, as  savouring  too  much  of  the  hero — 
/  have  retained  for  him  to  the  end  that 
futility  of  mind,  and  girt  him  about  with 
that  flippant  atmosphere,  in  which  the 
truly  heroic  chokes  and  stifles.  About  the 
other  characters  I  have  no  such  confessions 
to  make ;  they  have  successfully  steered 
clear  of  all  distinctions,  bodily  or  mental ; 
I  have  even  omitted  to  state  Eating's  place 
in  the  tripos,  and  for  this  reason.  He 
ought  to  have  done  better  than  the  Babe, 
but  the  Babe  got  a  second,  and  this  leaves 
only  one  class  where  Ealing  s  name  would 
reasonably  appear,  and  I  altogether  refuse 
to  let  him  take  a  first. 


vi  Dedication. 

Good-bye  for  the  present :  but  you  will  be 
home  for  leave,  will  you  not,  in  a  month  f 
Believe  me,  my  dear  Toby, 

Ever  your  sincere  friend, 

E.  F.  BENSON. 

P.  S. — I  apologise  for  what  I  have  said 
about  your  superficialness.  It  is,  however, 
perfectly  true. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I. — To  INTRODUCE     .        .        .        ...        I 

II. — IN  FELLOWS'  BUILDINGS  .        ,        .14 

III.— THE  BABE 30 

IV. — vs.  BLACKHEATH    .        .        .        .        .        -47 

V.— THE  WORK-CLUB          .  .        .        .63 

VI.— THE  BABE'S  PICNIC      .        .        ...       76 

VII. — THE  BABE'S  "SAPPING"       ....      93 

VIII.— CROQUET        .......     in 

IX. — TKA  AT  THE  PITT 122 

X. — ROYAL  VISITORS .     134 

XI. — THE  REHEARSAL 146 

XII. — A  COLLEGE  SUNDAY 162 

XIII.— KING'S  CHAPEL     .        .  /     ,        .        .        .176 
XIV. — A  VARIETY  ENTERTAINMENT        ...        .     183 

XV. — CLYTEMNESTRISMOS       .        .        .        .        .     198 

XVI. — AFTER  LUNCH       .        .        ...        .     212 

XVII.— A  LITTLE  GAME  .        .        .        .  .223 

XVIII. — THE  CONFESSION 236 

XIX. — IN  THE  FIFTIES    .  .        .        .        .     246 

XX. — THE  BABE'S  MINOR  DIVERSIONS  .         .        .     261 

XXI. — A  DAY  IN  THE  LENT  TERM         .        .        .     270 

XXII. — BEFORE  THE  TRIPOS 283 

XXIII.— THE  LISTS 299 


vu 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

ST.  JOHN'S  CHAPEL,  FROM  THE  BACKS  .  .  Frontispiece 
TRINITY  BRIDGE,  FROM  THE  BACKS  ....  76 

THE  BACKS no 

KINGS  COLLEGE,  SCREEN  AND  GATEWAY  .  .  .176 
TRINITY  STREET  AND  CAIUS  COLLEGE  ....  212 
CLARE  COLLEGE  AND  BRIDGE  .  .  .  .  .  246 


THE  BABE.  B.A. 


I. — To  INTRODUCE. 

The  time  has  come,  the  showman  said, 
To  look  at  many  things, 
At  Deans  and  tea  and  men  and  Babes 
At  Cambridge  and  at  King's. 

LIGHT-BLUE  LYRICS. 


"  AND  I  maintain,"  said  Reggie,  flour- 
ishing the  Britannia-metal  teapot  (in  or- 
der, it  is  supposed,  to  lend  a  spurious 
emphasis  to  the  banalite  of  his  sentiment), 
"  that  it's  better  to  have  played  and  lost 
than  never —  " 

The  teapot — one  of  those  in  which  the 
handle  is  invariably  the  hottest  part — had 
just  been  filled  up  with  boiling  water,  and 
a  clear  and  fervid  amber  stream  flew 
bounteously  out  of  its  spout  on  to  the 
bare  knees  of  one  of  those  who  had 
played  and  lost.  Thereupon  a  confused 
noise  arose,  and  Reggie's  sentence  has 
never  been  finished. 


2  The  Babe,  B.A. 

After  a  short  but  violent  interlude,  the 
confused  noise  ceased  by  tacit  consent,  as 
suddenly  as  it  had  begun  ;  Ealing  helped 
Reggie  to  pick  up  the  broken  fragments 
that  remained,  and  the  latter  had  to  drink 
his  tea  out  of  a  pint  glass. 

"  To  think  that  a  mere  game  of  foot- 
ball should  lead  to  such  disastrous  conse- 
quences," he  remarked.  "Why  does  tea 
out  of  a  glass  taste  like  hot  Gregory 
powder  ?  " 

"  I  never  drank  hot  Gregory  powder  ; 
what  does  it  taste  like  ? '' 

"  Why,  like  tea  out  of  a  glass,"  said 
Reggie  brilliantly. 

"  Reggie,  if  you  want  to  rag  again, 
you  Ve  only  got  to  say  so." 

Ealing  threw  into  a  corner  the  napkin 
with  which  he  had  been  drying  his  knees 
and  stocking  after  the  tea-deluge,  and  as 
he  had  finished,  took  out  a  pipe,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  fill  it. 

"  That  pig  of  a  half-back  caught  me  a 
frightful  hack  on  the  shin,"  he  said. 

"  Well,  you  kicked  him  in  the  stomach 
later  on,"  said  Reggie  consolingly.  "That's 


To  Introduce.  3 

always  something  to  fall  back  on.  Be- 
sides he  did  it  by  accident,  and  it  certainly 
looked  as  if  you  did  it  on  purpose.  Of 
course  it  may  only  have  been  sheer  clum- 
siness." 

"  Dry  up.  You  did  n't  funk  as  much 
as  usual  this  afternoon." 

"  I  tried  to,  but  I  never  had  time.  And 
I  can  funk  as  quickly  as  any  man  in  Eng- 
land. Jack,  it 's  time  for  you  to  say 
something." 

Jack  Marsden  was  the  only  one  of  the 
three  who  looked  in  the  least  like  a  gen- 
tleman at  that  moment.  Ealing  and  Reg- 
gie were  both  in  change,  they  both  wore 
villainously  muddy  flannel  knickerbockers, 
short  enough  to  disclose  villainously  muddy 
knees,  old  blazers,  and  strong,  useful,  foot- 
ball boots  with  bars.  Jack,  who  had  taken 
no  part  in  the  confused  noise,  was  sitting 
in  a  low  chair  reading  Alice  in  Wonder- 
land^ and  eating  cake  in  the  manner  of  a 
man  who  does  not  think  about  dinner. 

"I  wasn't  asleep,"  he  remarked.  "I 
heard  every  word  you  fellows  were  say- 
ing." 


4  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  Dormouse,"  explained  Ealing. 

"  Dormouse  it  is.  Give  me  some  more 
tea,  Reggie." 

4<  I  call  it  so  jolly  sociable  to  read  a  book 
when  you  come  to  tea,"  remarked  Reggie. 

"  So  do  I.  Thanks.  And  another  piece 
of  cake." 

41  Football  's  a  beastly  game,"  said  Eal- 
ing. 

"  Especially  when  one  is  beaten.  Here 
we  are  out  of  the  Cup  ties  in  the  first 
round,  and  what  one  is  to  do  now  I  don't 
know.  I  can't  think  why  people  ever  play 
football." 

"  I  shall  work,"  said  Ealing.  "  Have 
you  seen  the  list  of  the  subjects  for  the 
Mays  ?  I  think  it  must  be  meant  for  a 
joke.  They  have  set  all  the  classical  au- 
thors I  ever  heard  of,  and  nearly  all  I 
have  n't  ever  heard  of." 

"  I  want  a  clean  cup,"  quoted  Jack. 

"You  want  a  clean—  "began  Reggie 
slowly  in  a  tone  of  virulent  condemnation. 
But  being  unable  to  finish  his  sentence  in 
an  adequately  insulting  manner,  he  left 
Jack's  deficiencies  to  the  imagination. 


To  Introduce.  5 

"He  wants  a  clean  pipe,"  remarked 
Ealing.  "  It  sounds  like  a  kettle  boiling." 

Jack  shut  up  his  book  and  yawned. 

"  You  fellows  are  beastly  funny,"  he 
said.  "  I  'm  going  back  to  Trinity  to 
work.  For  why  ?  I  am  dining  with  the 
Babe  to-night." 

"The  Babe  has  got  markedly  madder 
and  several  years  younger  since  last  term," 
said  Ealing.  "  And  he  was  neither  sane 
nor  old  to  begin  with.  Tell  him  so  with 
my  love.  Or  I  dare  say  Reggie  and  I 
will  come  round  later." 

"  Do.  It  is  November  the  fifth.  The 
Babe  observes  all  feasts,  whether  civil  or 
ecclesiastical.  He  says  it  would  be  a 
thousand  pities  to  let  these  curious  old 
customs  lapse  into  disuse." 

"  I  wish  the  Babe  would  n't  use  such 
beautiful  language,"  said  Ealing. 

"  He  only  does  it  in  his  less  lucid  inter- 
vals. Good-bye.  I  '11  tell  him  you  Ye 
coming  round  about  ten." 

Jack  picked  up  his  hat  and  stick  and 
went  off  to  his  rooms  in  Trinity,  where 
till  half-past  seven  he  drifted  helplessly 


6  The  Babe,  B.A. 

about  like  a  ship-wrecked  mariner,  to 
whom  no  sail  breaks  the  limitless  horizon, 
in  Thucydides's  graphic  account  of  the 
Peloponnesian  war.  To  Jack,  however, 
it  appeared  that  its  chief  characteristic 
was  its  length,  rather  than  its  interest,  a 
criticism,  the  truth  of  which  is  rendered 
more  and  more  probable  every  year  by  an 
enormous  mass  of  perfectly  independent, 
unbiassed  critics.  But  being  a  short  and 
stout  young  man,  by  no  means  infirm  of 
purpose,  he  regarded  that  merely  as  a 
reason  the  more  for  beginning  at  once. 

Reggie  Bristow  and  Ealing  sat  on  for 
an  hour  or  so  by  the  fire.  They  were  old 
friends,  and  so  they  did  not  need  to  talk 
much.  Reggie  was  a  year  the  younger  of 
the  two,  and  he  was  now  half-way  through 
his  first  term  at  King's.  They  had  been  at 
Eton  five  years  together,  where  they  had 
both  extracted  a  good  deal  of  amusement 
out  of  life,  and  perhaps  a  little  profit. 
They  were  both  exceedingly  healthy,  to 
judge  by  the  superficial  standards  of  ex- 
aminations, rather  stupid,  and,  in  the 
opinion  of  those  who  knew  them,  on  a 


To  Introduce.  7 

much  more  important  matter,  very  live- 
able-with.  Furthermore,  they  both  played 
games  rather  well,  and,  as  was  right, 
neither  of  them  ever  troubled  his  head 
about  abstract  questions  of  any  sort  or 
kind.  Living  was  pleasant,  and  they  pro- 
ceeded to  live. 

Reggie  had  been  performing  this  pre- 
carious feat  with  admirable  steadiness  for 
just  nineteen  years.  Nature  had  gifted 
him  with  a  pleasant  face,  and  a  healthy 
appetite  had  enabled  him  to  show  it  to 
eminent  advantage  on  the  top  of  a  tall 
body.  He  preferred  talking  to  working, 
cricket  to  football,  and  lying  in  bed  to 
"signing  in"  at  8  A.M.  in  the  morning. 
He  smoked  a  good  many  pipes  every  day, 
and  blew  smoke  rings  creditably.  He 
played  the  piano  a  little,  but  his  friends 
did  not  encourage  him  to  take  the  neces- 
sary practice  whereby  he  might  play  it 
any  better.  He  was  in  fact  perfectly 
normal,  which  is  always  the  best  thing 
to  be. 

"  It 's  a  great  bore,  our  being  beaten," 
he  said,  after  a  long  pause,  during  which 


8  The  Babe,  B.A. 

he  had  succeeded  in  blowing  one  smoke 
ring  through  another.  "  We  were  the 
best  side  really." 

"  Of  course  we  were,  although  we  are 
blessed  with  a  goal-keeper  who  hides 
behind  the  goal-posts,  until  a  man  has  had 
his  shot." 

"  He  stopped  rather  a  hot  one  to-day." 
"  Purely  by  accident.     He  peeped  out 
from  the  goal-post  too  soon,  and  it  struck 
him  in  the  stomach.     I  hate  being  beaten 
by    Pemmer,  though    I    should  n't  have 
minded    if   we  'd    lost  to   Trinity.      The 
ground  was   in  a  filthy  state  too.     One 
couldn't  get  off." 
Reggie  sighed. 

"  I  've  got  to  write  to  my  father  to- 
morrow," he  said,  "  and  tell  him  my  im- 
pressions of  Cambridge.  It  will  be  a 
little  difficult,  because  I  haven't  got  any." 
"  Of  course  you  have  n't.  Only  people 
in  books  have  impressions.  Describe  the 
match  to-day." 

"  I  'm  afraid  it  wouldn't  interest  him." 

"  Well,  describe  King's  Chapel." 

"  I   might  do  that  ;   perhaps  he 's   for- 


To  Introduce.  9 

gotten  what  it  is  like.  Oh,  yes,  and  I 
miorht  describe  some  of  the  dons.  I  'm 

o 

expected  to  be  very  earnest,  you  know, 
and  the  worst  of  it  is  I  don't  know  how." 

"  Do  you  suppose  one  will  ever  become 
a  responsible  being  ?  "  asked  Ealing. 

"  No,  never,"  said  Reggie  emphatically. 
"  I  grow  sillier  and  sillier  every  day." 

"  Well,  you  can't  get  much  sillier." 

Reggie  shook  his  head. 

"You  wait  a  year  or  two,"  he  said.  "  I 
don't  suppose  you  can  form  the  slightest 
impression  of  how  foolish  I  can  be  if  I 
like." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  when  you 
go  down  ?  " 

"  The  Lord  knows,"  said  Reggie.  "  I 
was  considered  remarkably  bright  for  my 
age  at  one  time." 

"  Long  ago  ?" 

"  Ages  ago.  I  don't  suppose  I  Ve  been 
considered  bright  for  the  last  six  years.  Oh, 
by  the  way,  they've  put  me  into  the  Pitt." 

"  How  very  imprudent  of  them  !" 

"  Yes.  There  was  a  young  man  in  the 
Pitt." 


io  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  Well  ?  " 

"  That 's  all.      It 's  me,  you  know." 

Ealing  got  up  and  stretched  slowly  and 
luxuriously. 

"  I  must  go  and  change.  I  believe  one 
ought  n't  to  sit  in  wet  things.  But  if  one 
does  it  frequently  enough,  it  does  n't  seem 
to  hurt  one,  and  the  same  remark  applies 
to  muffins." 

"  I  shall  try  sitting  in  a  muffin,"  said 
Reggie  thoughtfully.  "  I  never  thought 
of  it  before." 

"  Do.  Are  you  going  into  Hall  to- 
night?" 

"Yes,  unless  you  ask  me  to  dinner." 

"  I  have  no  intention  whatever  of  doing 
that,"  said  Ealing. 

"  Then  we  '11  both  go  into  Hall.  I 
propose  to  drink  champagne  out  of  a  sil- 
ver mug  to  make  up  for  the  tea  out  of  a 

i       » 
glass. 

"  '  Not  what  I  wish  but  what  I  want,' 
as  the  Babe  said  the  other  day  when  he 
ordered  six  pairs  of  silk  pyjamas." 

"  Oh,  the  Babe  has  his  points,"  said 
Reggie. 


To  Introduce.  n 

Reggie's  rooms  looked  out  on  to  a 
small  court,  bounded  on  two  sides  by  the 
new  college  buildings,  on  one  by  that 
pellucid  river,  from  which,  as  Words- 
worth might  have  said,  "  Cambridge  has 
borrowed  its  name,"  and  on  the  other  by 
four  or  five  big  elm-trees.  Beyond  these 
lay  the  back  lawn,  growing  a  little  rank 
just  now  with  autumn  rains,  and  above 
that  the  main  buildings  of  the  college, 
and  the  Chapel,  which  is  quite  worth  de- 
scribing even  to  the  length  of  four  sides 
of  that  smaller  size  of  note-paper,  which  is 
found  so  eminently  convenient  a  basis  for 
the  purpose  of  writing  letters  to  relations. 

His  two  rooms  were  on  the  third  floor, 
opening  the  one  into  the  other,  and  like 
all  college  rooms,  were  very  thoughtfully 
supplied  with  an  outer  door  which  could 
only  be  opened  from  the  inside,  and  by 
means  of  which  the  laborious  student  can 
shut  himself  off  from  sight  and  sound  of 
the  busy  world  around.  During  Reggie's 
short  stay  at  Cambridge  it  had,  as  far  as 
he  knew,  only  been  used  once,  and  on 
that  occasion  a  playful  friend,  mistaking 


12  The  Babe,  B.A. 

its  real  use,  had  shut  him  out,  having  pre- 
viously ascertained  that  he  had  lost  the 
key.  This  feat  has  at  least  the  merit  of 
simplicity,  and  it  appears  to  lose  none  of  its 
fascination  however  constantly  repeated. 

Inside,  they  were  furnished  with  a  small 
bookcase,  occupied  by  debutant-looking 
classical  books,  several  low  chairs,  which 
may  best  be  described  as  rather  groggy, 
and  had  been  taken  on  from  the  pre- 
vious owner  at  a  high  valuation,  a  piano 
of  a  harsh  and  astringent  quality  of  tone, 
but  plenty  of  it,  several  high  chairs, 
and  two  tables.  The  smaller  of  these 
Reggie  preferred  to  call  his  working  ta- 
ble, the  only  explanation  of  which  seemed 
to  lie  in  the  fact  that  somebody  often  sat 
on  the  edge  of  it  when  the  chairs  were 
full.  Two  or  three  school  groups  and  a 
couple  of  engravings  hung  on  the  walls, 
and  the  chimney-piece  was  littered  with 
things  which  reminded  one  of  the  delight- 

o  o 

fully  vague  word  "  remnants,"  and  consist- 
ed of  candlesticks,  pipes,  old  letters,  loose 
matches,  an  ash  tray,  a  clock  which  for 
the  last  month  had  been  under  the  delu- 


To  Introduce.  13 

sion  that  it  was  always  ten  minutes  to 
four,  an  invitation  to  play  in  the  Fresh- 
man's football  match,  and  another  to  see 
the  Dean  at  five  minutes  to  seven,  a 
watch  and  watch-chain,  sixpence,  a  lawn- 
tennis  ball,  a  small  wooden  doll  in  hideous 
nakedness  (no  explanation  forthcoming), 
a  pen,  and  a  cigarette. 

It  was  a  cold  evening,  and  Reggie 
wandered  in  and  out  of  his  bedroom,  in 
a  state  of  betwixt  and  between,  now  clad 
only  in  a  bath  towel,  later  on  in  a  pair  of 
trousers  and  socks,  in  the  fulness  of  time 
completely  clothed.  It  still  wanted  five 
or  ten  minutes  to  seven,  and  he  stood  in 
front  of  the  fire  warming  himself  till  Hall 
time,  feeling  in  that  deliciously  half-tired, 
half-lazy  mood  which  is  the  inimitable 
result  of  violent  exercise.  He  rummaged 
aimlessly  in  the  debris  on  the  mantel- 
piece, and  suffering  the  deserved  fate  of 
idle  hands,  found  the  Dean's  note  about 
which  he  had  genuinely  forgotten.  He 
gave  vent  to  a  resigned  little  sound,  about 
half-way  between  a  sigh  and  a  swear,  took 
up  his  gown  and  left  the  room. 


II. — IN  FELLOWS'  BUILDINGS. 


King,  nine,  twa,  do  you  play  them  so  ? 
Whae  's  that  a-calling  ? 
I  dinna  ken,  and  I  do  not  know 
Whae  's  that  a-calling  sae  sweet. 

ON  THE  BORDER. 
And  one  clear  call  for  me. 

TENNYSON. 


THOSE  Fellows  of  colleges,  who  live  in 
college  are,  for  obvious  reasons,  debarred 
from  the  matrimonial  state,  and  should 
inspire  greater  respect  in  reflective  minds 
than  almost  any  other  class  of  persons  in 
this  naughty  world.  For  the  most  part 
they  combine  the  morality  of  married  men 
with  the  innocence  of  ideal  bachelors. 
Their  lives  are  for  nine  months  or  so  of 
the  year  lived  in  the  sequestered  shades 
of  pious  and  ancient  foundations,  un- 
spotted by  the  world.  Those  who  have 
relations  fill  their  places  in  the  domestic 
circle  where  .their  absence  has  no  doubt 
rendered  them  doubly  dear,  at  Christ- 
mas and  Easter,  or  join  those  who 
have  not,  and  pass  their  long  vacation  on 
the  lower  slopes  of  the  Alps,  or  at  quiet 
14 


In  Fellows'  Buildings.          15 

little  sea-side  places  ;  some  of  them  visit 
cathedrals  during  their  unoccupied  months, 
some  the  lakes,  few  or  none,  London,  or 
if  London,  chiefly  the  reading-room  at 
the  British  Museum.  But  there  are  ex- 
ceptions to  the  most  desirable  rules,  and 
even  among  Fellows  of  colleges  there  are 
a  few  who  are  reported  to  know  "a  thing 
or  two." 

On  Saturday  night  it  often  happened 
that  Fellows  of  King's  asked  their  col- 
leagues from  other  colleges  to  dine  with 
them.  After  dinner  they  sat  in  the  Com- 
bination Room  for  an  hour  or  so,  or  they 
would  break  up  into  parties,  which  spent 
the  evening  at  one  or  other  of  the  Fellows' 
rooms,  and  indulged  in  the  mild  dissipa- 
tion of  whist  at  three-penny  points,  which 
they  seemed  to  find  strangely  exhilarating. 
One  such  party  adjourned  directly  after 
dinner  to  the  room  of  the  Dean,  Mr. 
Collins,  who  two  hours  before  had  re- 
monstrated with  Reggie  for  not  attending 
a  larger  percentage  of  early  Chapels  or 
their  equivalent.  To  undergraduates  he 
was  scholastic  and  austere,  but  among  his 


1 6  The  Babe,  B.A. 

own  contemporaries  he  not  infrequently 
relaxed  into  positive  playfulness. 

Mr.  Stewart,  a  history  tutor  from  Trin- 
ity, was  one  of  his  guests  to-night,  and 
Mr.  Longridge,  a  Dean  of  the  same  col- 
lege, another.  About  Mr.  Longridge,  all 
that  need  be  said  at  present  is  that  in 
body  he  was  insignificant,  and  in  mind, 
incoherent.  But  Mr.  Stewart  was  a  more 
conspicuous  person  both  bodily  and  men- 
tally :  he  was  in  fact  one  of  the  exceptions 
to  the  general  run  of  his  class,  and  he  was 
credited,  by  report  at  least,  with  knowing 
not  only  a  thing  or  two,  but  lots  of 
things. 

Just  now,  his  long,  languid  form,  at- 
tired altogether  elegantly,  was  spread  over 
a  considerable  area  of  arm-chair,  his  feet 
rested  on  the  fender,  and  he  was  holding 
forth  on  certain  subjects  of  the  day,  about 
which  he  was  perfectly  qualified  to  speak. 
The  man  with  the  incoherent  mind  was 
sitting  near  him,  listening  with  ill-con- 
cealed impatience  to  his  sonorous  periods, 
and  getting  in  a  word  edgewise  occa- 
sionally. Mr.  Collins  was  busy  attending 


In  Fellows'  Buildings.          17 

to  the  wants  of  his  guests,  and  two  of  his 
friends  from  the  same  college,  were  sitting 
together  on  the  sofa,  resigned  but  replete. 

"The  luxury  of  modern  times,"  Mr. 
Stewart  was  saying,  "  is  disgusting, — 
Chartreuse,  please  —  simply  disgusting. 
What  business  have  men  to  clothe  their 
floors  in  fabrics  from  Persia,  their  walls 
in  other  fabrics  from  Cairo  and  Algiers, 
or  stamped  leather,  and  paintings  by 
Turner  and  Reynolds  and,  and  Orchard- 
son,  their  lamp-shades  in  lace  and  Lib- 
erty fabrics — Lace  and  Liberty  sounds 
like  a  party  catch-word — and  leave  their 
minds  naked  and  unashamed  ?  I  myself 
aim  at  a  studious  simplicity — Thank  you, 
I  have  brought  my  own  cigarettes.  Won't 
you  have  one  ?  They  are  straight  from 
Constantinople — a  studious  simplicity.  I 
live  at  Cambridge,  while  my  natural 
sphere  is  London  and  Paris.  I  get  up 
at  seven,  while  nature  bids  me  stay  in 
bed  till  ten.  I—" 

Mr.  Longridge  could  not  bear  it  any 
longer.  He  sprang  out  of  his  chair  as  a 
cuckoo  flies  out  of  a  cuckoo  clock  on  the 


1 8  The  Babe,  B.A. 

stroke  of  the  hour,  and  adjusted  his  spec- 
tacles. 

"  Well,  take  the  case  of  a  man  who,  say, 
lived  at  Oxford.    Supposing — or  well,  take 
another  case- 
Mr.  Stewart  took  advantage  of  a  mo- 
mentary pause  to  continue. 

"  Yes,  of  course,  very  interesting,"  he 
said.  "  A  delightful  town,  Oxford.  A 
shadow  of  the  romance  of  medisevalism 
still  lingers  about  its  grey  streets,  which 
is  quite  absent  from  the  new  red-brick 
buildings  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge. 
I  remember  walking  there  one  morning 
with  dear  George  Meredith,  and  your 
mention  of  Oxford  recalled  to  me  what 
he  said.  Poor  dear  fellow !  He  is  the 
most  lucid  of  men,  but  as  soon  as  he  puts 
pen  to  paper  he  is  like  an  elephant  that 
is  lost  in  a  jungle,  and  goes  trumpeting 
and  trampling  along  through  wreaths  and 
tangled  festoons  of  an  exotic  style.  Lord 
Granchester  was  staying  there  at  the 
time --Sir  Reginald  Bristow  he  was 
then—" 

"  I  had  the  pleasure  of  speaking  to  his 


In  Fellows'  Buildings.  19 

son  just  before  Hall,"  remarked  Mr.  Stew- 
art in  professional  accents. 

"  Reggie,  is  dear  Reggie  up  here  ? 
How  delightful !  I  remember  him  six  or 
seven  years  ago.  He  was  like  one  of 
Raphael's  angels." 

"  What  -  was-it-that  -  George  -Meredith  - 
said  ? "  asked  the  incoherent  man,  all  in 
one  word. 

"  One  of  Raphael's  angels,"  pursued 
Mr.  Stewart,  taking  not  the  slightest  no- 
tice. "  A  face  like  an  opening  flower." 

"  The  flower  has  a  stem  six  feet  high 
now,"  remarked  Mr.  Collins. 

"  Dear  Reggie  !  And — and  is  he  as 
fascinating  as  ever  ?  " 

Mr.  Collins  laughed. 

"  I  have  not  known  him  long,  so  I  can- 
not say  how  fascinating  he  is  capable  of 
being.  And  as  a  rule  Deans  and  under- 
graduates don't  put  out  their  full  power 
of  fascination  in  dealing  with  each  other." 

"  But  whose  fault  is  that  ? "  said  Mr. 
Stewart  in  a  slow  unctuous  voice.  "  Surely 
we  ought  to  be  brothers,  dear  elder  brothers 
to  the  undergraduates.  I  remember — " 


20  The  Babe,  B.A. 

Mr.  Collins,  who  was  obviously  sceptical 
about  George  Meredith's  remark,  and 
hoped  that  Stewart  was  going  back  to  it, 
brightened  up  and  interrogated,  "Yes?" 
in  an  intelligent  manner. 

"  I  remember,"  said  Mr.  Stewart  still 
sublimely  oblivious,  "  I  remember  that 
I  myself  used  always  to  make  friends, 
dear  friends  of  the  undergraduates  when 
I  was  Dean.  If  one  of  them  did  not  at- 
tend Chapel  often  enough,  as  often,  that 
is,  as  our  odious  regulations  require,  I 
used  to  ask  him  to  call  for  me  on  his  way, 
and  we  used  to  go  to  Chapel  together. 
One  had  a  rich,  lovely  tenor  voice.  I — I 
forget  his  name,  and  I  think  he  is  dead." 

Mr.  Longridge  laughed  monosyllabi- 
cally  but  unkindly. 

"  It  was  very  pleasant,  very  pleasant 
indeed,  but  to  be  Dean  brings  one  into 
the  wrong  relation  with  undergraduates," 
said  Mr.  Stewart.  "And  talking  of  music, 
I  had  a  charming  time  at  Bayreuth  last 
year.  We  had  Parsifal  and  Tannhduser 
and  the  Meister singers.  Tannhduser  is  the 
most  wonderful  creation.  Like  all  of  us, 


In  Fellows'  Buildings.  21 

but  more  successfully  than  most,  Wagner 
welds  into  one  harmonious  whole,  the 
ugliness  of  sin  and  the  beauty  of  holi- 
ness." 

Mr.  Longridge — there  is  no  other  word 
—bridled. 

"The  beauty  of  holiness,"  continued 
Mr.  Stewart,  chewing  and  masticating  his 
words,  so  as  to  get  the  full  flavour  out  of 
them,  "a  human  soul  capable  of  anything. 
Venusberg  and  Rome  are  alike  interludes 
to  him.  He  goes  on  his  sublimely  hu- 
morous way  from  Venusberg  to  Elizabeth, 
from  Elizabeth  to  Venusberg,  and  neither 
produces  any  lasting  effect.  And  how 
supremely  natural  the  end  is!  He  has 
left  an  almond  rod  at  Rome,  and  because 
one  of  the  pilgrims,  one  of  a  dowdy  crew 
of  middle-class  pilgrims  shows  him  an 
almond  rod  in  blossom,  he  rushes  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  his.  How  illogical, 
but  how  natural !  And  he  who  has  never 
had  the  courage  of  his  opinions  either  at 
Venusberg  or  Rome,  is  '  struck  of  a  heap,' 
as  they  say  in  suburban  places,  by  the 
flowering  almond  rod,  and  instantly  gives 


22  The  Babe,  B.A. 

up  the  ghost.  Maskelyne  and  Cooke 
could  produce  a  bundle  of  flowering 
almond  rods  in  half  the  time.  We  pay 
five  shillings  to  see  them  all.  Tannhauser 
paid  his  life  to  see  one.  He  died  of  joy 
at  the  sight  of  that  flowering  almond  rod. 
And  after  all  it  was  only  artificial  flowers 
twined  round  a  stick." 

"  Well,  of  course,  if  you  choose  to  look 
at  it  in  that  way,"  ejaculated  Mr.  Long- 
ridge. 

"  My  dear  Longridge,"  said  Mr.  Stew- 
art very  slowly,  "  there  is  only  one  way 
to  look  at  things,  only  one  way." 

"  Not  at  all,  though  you  might  very 
fairly  say  that  there  was  only  one  man  to 
look  at  in  one  way.  Quot  homines,  tot 
sententia. " 

"  Dear  old  Longridge,"  said  Stewart 
with  unctuous  affection. 

"  You  might  just  as  well  say,"  continued 
Mr.  Longridge,  "  that  because  there  are 
people  who  are  colour-bind,  we  none  of 
us  know  green  from  red." 

There  was  perhaps  nothing  in  the 
world  which  Mr.  Longridge  enjoyed  so 


In  Fellows'  Buildings.          23 

heartily  as  what  he  called  a  good,  sharp 
argument.  This  usually  consisted  in  his 
putting  forward  a  great  quantity  of  inde- 
fensible and  irrelevant  propositions  him- 
self, and  then  proceeding  to  show  how 
indefensible  they  were  :  their  irrelevancy 
needed  no  demonstration.  He  was  a  man 
of  mixed  mind. 

"  Dear  old  Longridge,"  repeated  Stew- 
art. "  Some  people  have  the  misfor- 
tune to  be  born  colour-blind,  and  no 
doubt  in  the  next  world  they  will  be 
extraordinarily  keen-sighted.  But  until 
we  have  finished  with  this  world,  and  I 
have  not,  we  can  leave  colour-blind  peo- 
ple altogether  out  of  the  question,  can  we 
not  ?  In  fact,  I  don't  know  how  they 
found  their  way  in.  Some  things  are 
green,  others  red,  and  if  you  call  them  by 
their  wrong  names,  even  your  own  friends 
must  allow  that  you  are  no  judge  of  colour." 

Mr.  Longridge  who  was  very  near- 
sighted, seemed  disposed  to  take  this 
personally. 

"  But  because  I  differ  from  you,  in  toto 
I  may  say,  that  is  no  proof  that  I  am 


24  The  Babe,  B.A. 

colour-blind.  You  might  just  as  well  say 
— well,  to  take  another  instance — " 

"  To  take  another  instance/  said  Mr. 
Stewart,  "  because  you  are  sleepy,  that  is 
no  reason  why  I  should  go  to  bed.  In 
fact,  I  will  have  just  a  glass  more  of  Char- 
treuse. What  a  lovely  colour  it  is.  A 
decadent,  abnormal  colour,  the  colour  of 
a  spoiled  piece  of  soul-fabric.  Yes,  quite 
delicious.  I  spent  a  fortnight  once  in  the 
monastery  at  Fecamp,  full  of  dear,  delight- 
ful, ascetic  monks.  I  think  they  all  put 
boiled  peas  in  their  shoes  during  the  day, 
which  must  be  horribly  squashy,  but  they 
all  drink  Chartreuse  after  dinner,  so  they 
end  happily.  Dear,  impossible  Charles 
Kingsley  used  always  to  abuse  monks — I 
suppose  because  he  was  tinged  with  ascet- 
icism himself.  But  I  fancy  there  is  no 
real  objection  to  their  marrying.  Monks 
marry  nuns,  I  think.  How  delightful  to 
receive  an  invitation  card — 'Monk  and 
Nun  Stewart. ' 

The  two  other  Fellows  of  King's  had 
subsided  into  the  background  altogether, 
and  were  discussing  the  chances  of  their 


In  Fellows'  Buildings.          25 

various  pupils  in  the  next  tripos.  They 
had  both  refused  Chartreuse,  and  took 
their  coffee  in  a  mixture  of  half  and  half 
with  hot  milk.  The  integral  calculus  on 
one  side  balanced  an  exceptional  skill  at 
Greek  Iambics  on  the  other,  and  they 
prattled  on  politely  and  innocently.  It 
must  be  conceded  that  they  felt  but  little 
interest  in  what  they  were  talking  about, 
but  their  interest  on  all  subjects  was  di- 
minutive and  bird-like.  They  pecked  and 
hopped  away. 

"  But  he  showed  me  a  copy  of  Iambics 
the  other  day,"  said  one,  "  with  two  final 
Cretics  in  it." 

Mr.  Stewart  caught  the  last  words. 

"  What  an  epigram  that  ought  to 
make  ! "  he  said,  smiling  broadly  and 
benignly.  "  The  insidious  and  final 
Cretic.  I  see  him  as  a  lean,  spare  man, 
with  a  cast  in  his  eye." 

"  It 's  merely  a  false  foot  in  Greek  Iam- 
bics they  are  talking  of,"  said  Longridge 
breathlessly. 

"  And  a  false  foot,"  continued  Stewart, 
"  cunningly  concealed  by  patent  leather 


26  The  Babe,  B.A. 

boots.  Thank  you,  Longridge,  the  pic- 
ture is  complete.  And  I  have  a  Victor 
Hugo  class  in  my  room  at  half-past  ten. 
We  are  reading  Les  Miser ablcs — a — a 
prose  epic.  I  must  literally  be  going." 

"  I  should  like  to  see  a  figurative  go- 
ing," said  Mr.  Longridge,  spitefully. 

Mr.  Stewart  turned  on  him  with  mild 
forbearance. 

"  You  can  say  you  must  be  going  and 
then  stop,"  he  said.  "Good  night,  good 
night.  A  most  pleasant  evening." 

There  were  now  only  four  of  them,  so 
at  their  host's  proposal  they  settled  down 
to  whist.  Mr.  Longridge  enquired  eagerly 
whether  it  was  to  be  long  whist  or  short 
whist,  but  as  no  one  had  ever  heard  of 
either,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  they 
played  medium,  and  it  is  certain  they 
played  mediocre  whist.  Mr.  Longridge 
during  the  first  deal,  demonstrated  quite 
conclusively  that  whist  markers  could  be 
used  either  for  whist  or  backgammon  or 
bezique,  always  supposing  you  knew  how 
to  multiply  by  ten,  or  with  somewhat  less 
ease  for  registering  the  votes  in  the  pres- 


In  Fellows'  Buildings.          27 

ent  election.  This  latter,  however,  ap- 
peared, as  far  as  it  was  possible  to  follow 
him,  to  imply  a  knowledge  of  how  to  mul- 
tiply by  thirteen  and  divide  by  twenty- 
nine,  a  feat  which  all  his  hearers,  with 
the  exception  of  the  mathematician,  were 
hopelessly  incapable  of -performing.  This, 
however,  was  no  detraction  whatever  from 
the  abstract  value  of  such  a  discovery. 

Longridge  was  partner  to  Mr.  Camp- 
bell, one  of  the  hitherto  silent  guests,  and 
Collins  to  Currey,  who  was  cursed  with 
the  final  Cretic  pupil.  And  herein  lay  the 
sting  of  the  affair,  for  Longridge's  studies 
in  whist  had  got  as  far  as  the  call  for 
trumps,  while  his  partner's  knowledge 
was  confined  to  a  complete  acquaintance 
with  the  ordinal  value  of  individual  cards. 
Collins,  however,  was  a  sound  player,  and 
the  only  one  present,  excepting  Long- 
ridge,  who  knew  what  a  call  for  trumps 
meant.  Longridge  consequently  stripped 
his  hand  naked,  as  it  were,  for  the  sole 
benefit  of  his  adversary.  The  rest  were 
as  Teiresias,  struck  blind  by  the  sight  of 
five  trumps  unveiled. 


28  The  Babe,  B.A. 

With  his  habitual  acumen  the  Dean  of 
Trinity  perceived  this  during-  the  second 
rubber,  and  without  communicating  his 
discovery,  as  he  was  strongly  tempted  to 
do,  played  the  higher  of  two  cards  instead 
of  the  lower  so  persistently  in  the  first 
round,  in  order  to  deceive  his  adversary 
on  the  right,  that  before  the  game  was 
three  deals  old  he  had  irrevocably  re- 
voked. Holding  the  knave  and  nine  of 
clubs  he  played  the  higher  of  the  two  on 
to  the  queen  third  hand,  and  deceived  by 
his  own  acuteness  supposed  he  had  no 
more,  and  trumped  the  second  round. 
Whereby  his  adversaries  went  out,  a 
treble. 

Reggie  and  Ealing,  meantime,  had 
spent  a  charming  evening.  Reggie  had 
been  pressed  not  to  play  the  piano  after 
Hall,  and,  instead,  they  had  played  bil- 
liards till  just  before  ten,  and  then  gone 
round  to  Malcom  Street  to  come  down 
to  dessert  at  the  Babe's  dinner  party. 

As  it  was  Guy  Fawkes's  day,  their  course, 
so  to  speak,  was  mapped  out  for  them 


In  Fellows'  Buildings.          29 

beyond  possibility  of  error,  and  Reggie 
had  the  prospect  of  being  exactly  six  shil- 
lings and  eight-pence  poorer  than  he 
otherwise  would  have  been,  at  about 
10.30  on  Monday  morning. 


III. — THE  BABE. 


O  bitter  world,  where  one  who  longs 
To  be  recorded  unforgiven, 
Bewitched  and  wild,  is  called  a  child 
Fit  to  be  seen  in  any  heaven. 


HOTCHPOTCH  VERSES. 


THE  Babe  was  a  cynical  old  gentleman 
of  twenty  years  of  age,  who  played  the 
banjo  charmingly.  In  his  less  genial  mo- 
ments he  spoke  querulously  of  the  monot- 
ony of  the  services  of  the  Church  of 
England,  and  of  the  hopeless  respecta- 
bility of  M.  Zola.  His  particular  forte 
was  dinner  parties  for  six,  skirt  dancing 
and  acting,  and  the  performances  of  the 
duties  of  half-back  at  Rugby  football. 
His  dinner  parties  were  selected  with  the 
utmost  carelessness,  his  usual  plan  being 
to  ask  the  first  five  people  he  met,  pro- 
vided he  did  not  know  them  too  inti- 
mately. With  a  wig  of  fair  hair,  hardly 
any  rouge,  and  an  ingenue  dress,  he  was 
the  image  of  Vesta  Collins,  and  that 
graceful  young  lady  might  have  practised 
before  him,  as  before  a  mirror.  But  far 


The  Babe.  3* 

the  most  remarkable  point  about  the  Babe, 
considering  his  outward  appearance  and 
other  tastes,  was  his  brilliance  as  a  Rugby 
football  player.  He  was  extraordinarily 
quick  with  the  ball,  his  passing  was  like  a 
beautiful  dream,  and  he  dodged,  as  was 
universally  known,  like  the  devil.  It  was 
a  sight  for  sore  eyes  to  see  the  seraphic, 
smooth-faced  Babe  waltzing  gaily  about 
among  rough-bearded  barbarians,  pretend- 
ing to  pass  and  doing  nothing  of  the  kind, 
dropping  neatly  out  of  what  looked  like 
the  middle  of  the  scrimmage,  or  flickering 
about  in  a  crowd  which  seemed  to  be  un- 
able to  touch  him  with  a  finger. 

Last  night  the  Babe  had  been  com- 
pletely in  his  element.  His  dinner  party 
consisted  of  a  rowing-blue,  a  man  who 
had  been  sent  down  from  Oxford,  a  Dean 
who  was  to  preach  the  University  sermon 
next  day,  and  was  the  Babe's  uncle,  Jack 
Marsden,  a  gentleman  from  Corpus,  who 
had  a  very  rosy  chance,  so  said  his  friends, 
of  representing  Cambridge  against  Oxford 
at  chess,  and  himself.  Later  on,  Reggie 
and  Ealing  had  come  in,  who  with  the 


32  The  Babe,  B.A. 

help  of  the  rowing  man  broke  both  his 
sofas  ;  the  gentleman  from  Oxford  had  in- 
sisted, to  the  obvious  discomfort  of  the 
Dean,  on  talking  to  him  about  predestina- 
tion, a  subject  of  which  the  Dean  seemed 
to  know  nothing-  whatever  ;  the  chess-man 

o 

had  played  bezique  with  Jack,  and  the 
Babe  had  presided  over  them  all  with  in- 
fantine cynicism.  A  little  later  on,  when 
the  Dean  had  gone  away,  he  had  danced 
a  skirt-dance  in  a  sheet  and  a  night-gown, 
and  they  ended  up  the  evening  by  what 
the  Babe  called  "  a  set  piece  "  from  his 
window,  consisting  of  a  Catherine  wheel, 
and  four  Roman  candles,  not  counting  the 
rocket  which  exploded  backwards  through 
the  Babe's  chandelier,  narrowly  missing 
the  head  of  the  man  from  Corpus,  whose 
chance  of  getting  his  chess-blue  would,  if 
it  had  hit,  have  been  totally  extinguished. 
In  order  to  lend  verisimilitude  to  the  pro- 
ceedings Reggie  had  gone  into  the  street 
and  called  "  Oh-h-h-h,"  at  intervals,  and 
as  he  had  left  his  cap  and  gown  in  the 
Babe's  room,  he  was  very  promptly  and 
properly  proctorised. 


The  Babe.  33 

The  Babe  breakfasted  next  morning-  at 
the  civilised  hour  of  ten,  and  observed 
with  a  faint  smile  that  the  rocket  stick 
was  deeply  imbedded  in  the  ceiling,  and 
he  ate  his  eggs  and  bacon  with  a  serene 
sense  of  the  successful  incongruity  of  his 
little  party  the  night  before.  The  gentle- 
man from  Oxford  who  was  staying  with 
him  had  not  yet  appeared,  but  the  Babe 
waited  for  no  man,  when  he  was  hungry. 

The  furniture  of  his  rooms  was  as  vari- 
ous and  as  diverse  as  his  accomplishments. 
Several  of  Mr.  Aubrey  Beardsley's  illus- 
trations from  the  Yellow  Book,  clustering 
round  a  large  photograph  of  Botticelli's 
Primavera,  which  the  Babe  had  never 
seen,  hung  above  one  of  the  broken  sofas, 
and  in  his  bookcase  several  numbers  of 
the  Yellow  Book,  which  the  Babe  declared 
bitterly  had  turned  grey  in  a  single  night, 
since  the  former  artist  had  ceased  to  draw 
for  it,  were  ranged  side  by  side  with  But- 
ler's Analogies,  Mr.  Sponge's  Sporting 
Tour,  and  Miss  Marie  Corelli's  Barabbas. 
It  is,  however,  only  fair  to  the  Babe  to  say 
that  Bishop  Butler's  volume  had  been 


34  The  Babe,  B.A. 

part  of  the  "  set  piece  "  for  his  Littlego, 
and  that  he  referred  to  Miss  Corelli  as 
the  arch  humourist  of  English  literature. 
A  pair  of  dumb-bells,  each  weighing  fifty- 
six  pounds,  stood  by  the  fireplace,  but 
these  the  Babe  had  never  been  known  to 
use  in  order  to  further  his  muscular  devel- 
opment ;  he  only  rolled  them  over  the 
floor  with  the  patient  look  of  one  who 
had  the  destinies  of  the  world  on  his 
shoulders,  whenever  the  lodger  below 
played  the  piano.  It  may  be  remarked 
that  the  two  were  not  on  speaking  terms. 

"  And  herein,"  said  the  Babe,  when  he 
explained  the  use  of  the  dumb-bells  the 
evening  before,  "  herein  lies  half  the  bit- 
terness of  human  life." 

He  was  pressed  to  explain  further,  but 
only  replied  sadly, 

"  So  near  and  yet  so  far,"  and  showed 
how  it  was  possible  to  imitate  the  experi- 
ence of  a  sea-sick  passenger  on  the  chan- 
nel, by  means  of  "  that  simple,  and  I  may 
add,  delicious  fruit,  the  common  orange." 

It  was  a  most  realistic  and  spirited  per- 
formance, and  all  that  the  Dean  could  do 


The  Babe.  35 

was  to  ejaculate  feebly,  "  Do  stop,  Babe," 
between  his  spasms  of  laughter. 

The  Babe  had  finished  his  breakfast, 
which  he  ate  with  a  good  appetite,  heart 
ily,  before  the  gentleman  from  Oxford  ap- 
peared, and  proceeded  to  skim  the  Sunday 
Times.  When  he  did  appear  he  looked  a 
little  disconsolately  at  the  breakfast  table, 
and  lifting  up  a  dish-cover  found  some  cold 
bacon,  at  which  he  blanched  visibly,  and 
demanded  soda  water. 

"  What  did  you  eat  for  breakfast, 
Babe  ?  "  he  asked. 

The  Babe  looked  up  apologetically. 

"  I  'm  afraid  I  ate  all  the  eggs,  and  the 
bacon  must  be  cold  by  now,"  he  said.  "  But 
I  '11  send  for  some  more." 

"  No  thanks.     Where 's  the  tea  ?  " 

The  Babe  rang  the  bell. 

"  It'll  be  here  in  a  moment.  I  drank 
cocoa." 

Leamington  finished  his  soda  water, 
and  sat  down. 

"  There  is  no  end  to  your  greatness. 
Cocoa  !  Great  Scot !  My  tongue  is  the 
colour  of  mortar," 


36  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  I  'm  so  sorry.  I  feel  quite  well, 
thanks.  Will  you  have  some  Eno's  fruit 
salts  ?  I  know  my  landlady 's  got  some, 
because  she  offered  me  them  the  other 
day  when  I  had  a  cold.  Here's  your  tea. 
Do  you  ever  read  the  Pink  'un  ?  It's 
funny  without  being  prudish." 

Leamington  poured  out  some  tea. 

"  Don't  read,  Babe  ;  it 's  unsociable. 
Talk  to  me  while  I  eat." 

The  Babe  put  down  the  current  copy 
of  the  Sunday  Times,  and  laid  himself 
out  to  be  pleasant. 

"  There  are  some  people  coming  to 
lunch  at  two,"  he  said.  "  I  rather  think  I 
asked  Reggie.  Poor  Reggie,  he  got 
dropped  on  in  a  minute  by  the  Proggins. 
Oh,  yes,  and  so  is  Stewart.  Do  you  know 
Stewart?  He's  a  don  at  Trinity,  and  is 
supposed  to  be  wicked.  I  wish  someone 
would  suppose  me  to  be  wicked.  But 
I  'm  beginning  to  be  afraid  they  never 
will." 

"  You  must  lose  your  look  of  injured 
innocence  or  rather  cultivate  the  injury  at 
the  expense  of  the  innocence.  Grow  a 


The  Babe.  37 

moustache  ;  no  one  looks  battered  and 
world-weary  without  a  moustache." 

"  I  can  't.  I  bought  some  Allen's  Hair 
Restorer  the  other  day,  but  it  only 
smarted.  I  wonder  if  they  made  a  mis- 
take and  gave  me  Allen's  Antifat  ?" 

"You  don't  look  as  if  they  had,"  said 
Leamington,  "  at  least  it  does  n't  look  as 
if  it  had  had  much  effect.  Would  n't  it 
take?" 

"  Not  a  bit,"  said  the  Babe.  "  I  applied 
it  night  and  morning  to  my  upper  lip,  and 
it  only  smelt  and  smarted.  I  suppose  you 
can't  restore  a  thing  that  has  never  ex- 
isted. I  think  I  shall  be  a  clergyman,  be- 
cause all  clergymen  cut  their  moustaches 
off,  and  to  do  that  you  must  have  one." 

"  I  see.  But  is  n't  that  rather  elabo- 
rate?" 

"  No  means  are  elaborate  if  you  desire 
the  end  enough,"  said  the  Babe  senten- 
tiously.  "  I  shall  marry  too,  because 
married  people  are  bald,  and  I  'm  sure  I 
don't  wonder." 

"So  are  babies." 

"  Not  in  the  same  way,  and  don't  be 


38  The  Babe,  B.A. 

personal.  I  can't  think  of  any  other  means 
of  losing  the  appearance  of  innocence. 
Suggest  some  :  you  Ve  been  rusticated." 

"  Why  don't  you—" 

"  I  've  tried  that,  and  it 's  no  use." 

"  But  you  don't  know  what  I  was  going 
to  say,"  objected  Leamington. 

"  I  know  I  don't.  But  I  Ve  tried  it," 
said  the  wicked  Babe.  "  I  've  even  read 
the  Yellow  Book  through  from  cover  to 
cover,  and  as  you  see,  framed  the  pictures 
by  Aubrey  Beardsley.  The  Yellow  Book 
is  said  to  add  twenty  years  per  volume  to 
any  one's  life.  Not  at  all.  It  has  left  me 
precisely  where  it  found  me,  whereas, 
according  to  that,  as  I  Ve  read  five  vol- 
umes, I  ought  to  be,  let  's  see — five 
times  twenty,  plus  twenty — a  hundred 
and  twenty.  I  don't  look  it,  you  know. 
It's  no  use  your  telling  me  I  do,  because 
I  don't.  I  have  no  illusions  whatever 
about  the  matter." 

"I  wasn't  going  to  tell  you  anything 
of  the  kind,"  said  Leamington.  "  But 
you  should  take  yourself  more  seriously. 
I  believe  that  is  very  aging." 


The  Babe.  39 

The  Babe  opened  his  eyes  in  the  wild- 
est astonishment. 

"  Why  I  take  myself  like  Gospels  and 
Epistles,"  he  said.  "  The  fault  is  that 
no  one  else  takes  me  seriously.  You 
would  hardly  believe,"  he  continued  with 
some  warmth,  "that  the  other  night  I 
was  proctorised,  and  that  when  the  Proc- 
tor saw  who  I  was — he 's  a  Trinity  man — 
he  said,  '  Oh,  it 's  only  you.  Go  home 
at  once,  Babe.'  It  is  perfectly  disheart- 
ening. I  offered  to  let  him  search  me  to 
see  whether  I  had  such  a  thing  as  a  cap 
or  a  gown  concealed  anywhere  about  me. 
And  the  bull-dogs  grinned.  How  can  I 
be  a  devil  of  a  fellow,  if  I  'm  treated  like 
that  ? " 

"  I  should  have  thought  a  Rugby  blue 
could  have  insisted  on  being  treated  pro- 
perly." 

"No,  that's  all  part  of  the  joke," 
shrieked  the  infuriated  Babe.  "  It 's 
supposed  to  add  a  relish  to  the  silly 
pointless  joke  of  treating  me  like  a  child 
and  calling  me  '  Babe.'  I  Ve  never  been 
called  anything  but  Babe  since  I  can 


40  The  Babe,  B.A. 

remember.  And  when  I  try  to  be  proc- 
torised  the  very  bull-dogs  come  about 
me,  making  mouths  at  me." 

"  Rough  luck.  Try  it  on  again." 
"  It 's  a  pure  waste  of  time,"  said  the 
Babe  disconsolately.  "  I  might  go  out 
for  a  drive  with  all  the  bed-makers  of 
this  college  in  a  tandem,  and  no  one 
would  take  the  slightest  notice  of  me. 

o 

Besides  I  can  never  make  a  tandem  go 
straight.  The  leader  always  turns  round 
and  winks  at  me.  It  knows  perfectly 
well  that  I  'm  only  the  Babe,  bless  its 
heart.  I  edited  a  perfectly  scandalous 
magazine  here  last  term  you  know,  every 
day  during  the  May  week.  It  simply 
teemed  with  scurrilous  suggestiveness. 
It  insulted  directly  every  one  with  whom 
I  was  acquainted,  and  many  people  with 
whom  I  was  not.  It  compared  the  Vice- 
Chancellor  to  an  old  toothbrush,  and 
drew  a  trenchant  parallel  between  the 
Proctors  and  the  town  drainage.  It  sug- 
gested that  the  antechapel  of  King's 
should  be  turned  into  a  shooting-gallery, 
and  the  side  chapels  into  billiard-rooms. 


The  Babe.  41 

It  proposed  that  I  should  be  appointed 
Master  of  Magdalen,  I  forget  why  at 
this  moment.  It  contained  the  results 
of  a  plebiscite  as  to  who  should  be  Vice- 
Chancellor  for  the  next  year,  and  the 
under-porter  of  King's  got  in  easily,  with 
Jack  Marsden  as  a  bad  second.  It  pro- 
posed the  substitution  of  dominoes  and 
hopscotch — I  have  n't  the  least  idea  what 
hopscotch  is,  but  it  sounds  to  me  simply 
obscene — for  the  inter-university  contests 
at  cricket  and  rowing.  And  that  maga- 
zine," said  the  Babe  dramatically,  rising 
from  his  chair,  and  addressing  Primavera, 
"that  magazine  was  welcomed,  welcomed, 
Madam,  by  all  classes.  The  innocent 
lambs,  whose  reputation  I  ought  to  have 
ruined  came  bleating  after  me  and  said 
how  they  had  enjoyed  it.  It  sold  by 
hundreds,  when  it  ought  to  have  been 
suppressed :  people  thought  it  funny, 
whereas  it  was  only  hopelessly  foolish 
and  vulgar,  though  I  say  it  who  should  n't ; 
while  those  few  people  who  had  the  sense 
to  see  how  despicable  the  whole  produc- 
tion really  was,  told  each  other  that  'it 


42  The  Babe,  B.A. 

was  only  Me.'  Me  !  I  'm  almost  sick  of 
the  word.  I  was  put  '  in  Authority '  in 
the  Granta,  when  I  ought  to  have  been 
sent  down — The  Vice-Chancellor  asked 
me  to  dinner  on  the  very  day  when  I 
published  a  most  infernal  and  libellous 
lampoon  about  him,  and  I  have  already 
told  you  how  the  Proctors  treat  me.  It 
is  enough,"  said  the  Babe  in  conclusion, 
"  to  make  one  take  the  veil,  I  mean  the 
tonsure,  and  dry  up  the  milk  of  human 
kindness  within  one." 

"  Hear,  hear,"  shouted  Leamington. 
"Good  old  Babe." 

The  Babe  glared  at  him  a  moment,  with 
wide,  indignant  eyes  and  then  went  on 
rather  shrilly : 

"  Look  at  Reggie.  I  'm  older  than  he  is, 
at  least  I  think  so,  and  any  one  with  a  grain 
of  sense  would  say  that  I  therefore  ought 
to  know  better,  and  what  is  excusable  in 
him,  is  not  excusable  in  me,  but  he  goes 
and  says  '  Oh '  in  the  street  and  he  is 
treated  as  a  dangerous  character,  sent 
home,  and  will  be  fined.  I  might  say  '  Oh ' 
till  Oscar  Browning  got  into  Parliament, 


The  Babe.  43 

and  do  you  suppose  they  would  ever  con- 
sider me  a  dangerous  character  ?  Not 
they.  (Here  the  Babe  laughed  in  a  hol- 
low and  scornful  manner.)  They  would 
treat  me  with  that  infernal  familiarity 
which  I  so  deprecate,  and  say,  '  Go  home, 
Babe.'  Babe  indeed!" 

The  Babe's  voice  broke,  and  he  flung 
himself  into  his  chair  after  the  manner 
of  Sarah  Bernhardt,  and  hissed  out  "  Mis- 
er ables  /  Comme  je  les  deteste  !  " 

Leamington  applauded  this  histrionic 
effort,  and  feeling  a  little  better  after 
breakfast,  lit  a  cigarette.  The  maid- 
servant came  to  clear  breakfast  away,  and 
as  she  left  the  room  the  Babe  resumed  in 
the  gentle,  melancholy  tones,  which  were 
natural  to  him : 

"  If  I  thought  it  would  do  any  good,  I 
would  go  and  snatch  a  kiss  from  that 
horrid,  rat-faced  girl  as  she  is  carrying 
the  tray  down  stairs.  But  it  wouldn't, 
you  know  ;  it  would  n't  do  any  good  at 
all.  She  would  n't  complain  to  the  land- 
lady, or  if  she  did  it  would  only  end 
in  my  giving  her  half-a-crown.  Besides, 


44  The  Babe,  B.A. 

I  don't  in  the  least  want  to  kiss  her — I 
wouldn't  do  it  if  she  gave  me  half-a- 
crown.  I  wonder  what  George  Moore 
would  do  if  he  were  me.  We  '11  ask 
Stewart  when  he  comes  to  lunch.  He 
is  intimate  with  all  notable  people. 
George  Moore  is  notable  is  n't  he  ?  I 
fancy  W.  H.  Smith  &  Son  boycotted  him. 
Stewart  said  the  other  day  that  the  Em- 
peror of  Germany  was  one  of  the  nicest 
emperors  he  had  ever  seen." 

"That  's  nothing,"  said  Leamington. 
"  There  's  a  don  at  Oxford  who  has  writ- 
ten a  book  called  Princes  I  have  Persecuted 
•without  Encouragement" 

The  Babe  laughed. 

"  A  companion  volume  to  Stewart's 
Monarchs  I  have  Met.  Not  that  he  has 
written  such  a  book.  Stewart  is  perfectly 
charming,  but  he  thinks  a  lot  of  a  Prince. 

o  ' 

If  he  hasn't  written  Monarchs  I  have 
Met,  he  ought  to  have." 

"  We  all  ought  to  have  done  a  lot  of 
things  he  have  n't  done,"  said  Leaming- 
ton. 

"  We  had  a  butler  once,"  said  the  Babe, 


The  Babe.  4C 

"  who  never  would  say  the  General  Con- 
fession, because  he  said  he  had  n't  left 
undone  the  things  he  ought  to  have  done, 
and  it  went  against  his  conscience  to  say 
he  had.  He  got  the  sack  soon  after  for 
leaving  the  door  of  the  cellar  undone,  and 
for  getting  drunk." 

"  So  he  was  undone  himself." 
"  When  I  grow  up,"  said  the  Babe  with 
less  bitterness,  but  returning  like  a  burned 
moth  to  the  sore  subject — no  charge  for 
mixed  metaphors — "  I  shall  live  exclu- 
sively in  the  society  of  archdeacons. 
Perhaps  they  might  think  me  wicked. 
Yet  I  don't  know — my  uncle  whom  you 
met  last  night  thinks  I  'm  such  a  good 
boy,  and  he  's  a  dean." 

"  I  doubt  if  they  would.  The  other 
day  some  one  sent  a  telegram  to  the 
Archdeacon  of  Basingstoke,  a  man  of 
whom  he  knew  nothing  except  that  he 
was  a  teetotaller  and  an  anti-vivisectionist, 
saying,  '  Fly  at  once,  all  is  discovered.' 
The  Archdeacon  flew,  and  has  never  been 
heard  of  since.  No  one  has  the  slightest 
idea  where  he  has  gone  or  what  he  had 


46  The  Babe,  B.A. 

done.  You  know  you  would  n't  fly,  Babe, 
if  you  were  sent  telegrams  like  that  by 
the  hundred." 

"  How  little  you  know  me,"  said  the 
Babe  dramatically.  "  I  should  fly  like 
fun.  Don't  you  see  if  one  flew,  one's 
character  for  wickedness  would  be  estab- 
lished beyond  all  doubt.  I  might  send  a 
telegram  to  myself,  telling  me  to  fly. 
Then  I  should  fly,  but  leave  the  tele- 
gram lying  about  in  a  conspicuous  posi- 
tion. After  a  year's  absence  I  should  re- 
turn, but  my  character  would  be  gone 
beyond  all  hopes  of  recovery,  and  the 
world  would  do  me  justice  at  last." 

"  Poor  misunderstood  Babe !  Why  don't 
you  go  to  Oxford,  saying  you  Ve  been 
sent  down  from  Cambridge  ?  What  time 
do  we  lunch  ?" 

"  Oh,  about  two,  and  it 's  half-past  twelve 
already.  Let  's  go  round  to  the  Pitt. 
This  evening  we  will  go  to  Trinity 
Chapel.  A  little  walk  is  very  wholesome 
after  breakfast.  Besides  I  shall  go  in  a 
bowler,  and  perhaps  we  shall  meet  at 
Proggins.  I  shall  insult  him  if  we  do." 


IV. — vs.  BLACKHEATH. 


For  he  was  very  fast, 

And  he  ran  and  he  passed, 
And  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the  stars 
Tried  to  catch  him  by  the  tail, 
But  they  one  and  all  did  fail, 
And  Venus  broke  her  nose  'gainst  Mars. 

HOTCHPOTCH  VERSES. 


THE  Babe  hurt  his  knee  playing  against 
the  Old  Leysians,  and  his  language  was 
Aristophanic  and  savoured  strongly  of 
faint  praise.  Also  one  of  the  Old  Ley- 
sians had  grossly  insulted  him  during  the 
course  of  the  game.  The  Babe  was  ca- 
reering about  with  the  ball  behind  their 
touch-line,  attempting  to  get  a  try  straight 
behind  the  goal-posts,  instead  of  being 
content  with  one  a  reasonable  distance 
off,  for  he  was  fastidious  in  these  little 
matters  and  liked  to  do  things  well,  when 
he  was  caught  up  bodily  by  one  of  the 
opposing  team  and  carried  safely  out  into 
the  field  again.  A  roar  of  appreciative 
laughter,  and  shouts  of  "  Good  old  Babe  " 
went  up  from  all  the  field,  and  the  Babe's 
feelings  were  hurt.  He  had  the  satisfac- 

47 


48  The  Babe,  B.A. 

tion  of  dropping  a  goal  a  little  later  on, 
but  he  asked  pathetically,  "  Could  aught 
atone?" 

Before  "  Time  "  was  called  he  had  hurt 
his  knee,  and  as  already  mentioned  he  was 
Aristophanic  for  a  few  days. 

The  next  match  was  against  Blackheath, 
and  the  Babe  had  not  yet  recovered  suffi- 
ciently to  play.  He  had  bought  an  Inver- 
ness cloak  "  so  loud,"  he  said,  "  that  you 
could  scarcely  hear  yourself  speak,"  and 
a  cross-eyed  bull-pup,  in  order  to  dispel 
that  universal  but  distressing  illusion  about 
his  childishness,  which  so  vexed  his  soul, 
and  he  was  going  to  lunch  with  Reggie 
and  look  at  the  match  afterwards.  Bill 
Sykes,  the  bull-dog,  was  coming  too,  in 
order  to  be  seen  with  the  Babe  by  as 
many  people  as  possible,  and  his  master 
drove  to  King's  gate  with  his  Inverness 
and  his  bull-dog,  and  his  seraphic  smile, 
in  the  best  of  tempers.  It  was  necessary 
to  smuggle  Mr.  Sykes,  as  the  Babe  in- 
sisted that  strangers  should  call  him, 
through  the  court  without  his  being  seen, 
and  the  Babe  hobbled  along,  still  being 


vs.  Blackheath.  49 

rather  lame,  presenting  a  curious  lopsided 
appearance  which  was  caused  by  Mr. 
Sykes,  who  was  tucked  away  beneath  the 
Inverness.  A  confused  growling  sound 
issued  at  intervals  from  somewhere  below 
his  left  arm,  drowning  even  the  loudness 
of  the  Inverness,  and  the  Babe  murmured 
encouragement  and  threats  alternately. 
The  porter  stared  suspiciously  at  this  odd 
figure  as  it  passed,  but  the  serenity  of  the 
Babe's  smile  was  as  infinite  as  ever. 

The  Babe's  hansom  had  been  told  to 
wait  at  the  back  gate  of  King's,  but  it 
had  apparently  found  waiting  tedious,  and 
as  there  were  no  others  about,  they  had 
to  walk.  Mr.  Sykes,  however,  took  this 
opportunity  to  behave,  as  the  Babe  said, 
"like  the  dog  of  a  real  blood,"  and  had 
a  delightful  turn-up  with  a  mongrel  gen- 
tleman of  his  acquaintance,  which  did  him 
much  credit. 

The  game  had  not  yet  begun  when  they 
reached  the  Corpus  ground,  and  both 
Sykes  and  the  Babe's  cloak  can  hardly 
have  failed  to  be  noticed.  The  Babe 
hobbled  about  among  the  two  teams  who 


50  The  Babe,  B.A. 

were  kicking  about  before  the  game  be- 
gan, and  said  it  was  much  pleasanter 
looking  on  than  playing,  and  that  he 
meant  to  give  it  up,  as  it  was  a  game 
more  suited  to  savages  than  gentlemen. 
Two  of  the  home  team  resented  these 
remarks,  and  removed  him,  kindly  but 
firmly,  beyond  the  touch-line. 

He  and  Reggie  had  secured  chairs 
towards  the  centre  of  the  ground,  and  it 
pleased  the  Babe  to  affect  a  childlike 
ignorance  of  everything  connected  with 
the  rules  and  regulations  of  Rugby  foot- 
ball, and  he  kept  up  a  flow  of  fatuous 
remarks. 

"  Look  how  they  are  throwing  the  ball 
about  !  Why  do  they  do  that,  Reggie  ? 
Which  side  is  getting  the  best  of  it  ? 
Look  at  that  funny  little  man  with  a  flag, 
why  do  they  all  stop  when  he  holds  it  up  ? 
I  suppose  it  must  be  the  captain.  Have 
they  got  any  try-downs  yet,  or  do  you 
call  them  touches  ?  Oh,  the  ball 's  coming 
over  here.  I  wish  they  'd  take  more  care  ; 
it  might  easily  have  hit  me.  Why  don't 
they  have  a  better  one  ?  It's  got  all  out 


vs.  Blackheath.  51 

of  shape  ;  it  is  n't  a  bit  round.  Mr.  Sykes 
wants  to  play  too.  What  a  darling  !  Bite 
it  then !  How  rough  they  are  !  Why 
did  Hargreaves  stamp  on  that  man  so?" 

The  effect  of  Hargreaves'  "stamping  on 
that  man  "  was  that  he  got  the  ball  and  a 
nice  clear  run.  He  was  playing  three 
quarters  on  the  right,  and  when  he  got 
fairly  off  he  was  as  fast  as  any  man  in 
England.  His  weak  point,  however,  was 
starting :  he  could  not  start  full  speed  as 
the  Babe  did,  being  heavy  and  a  trifle 
clumsy.  But  he  got  twenty  yards  clear 
now,  and  making  the  most  of  it  he  was 
well  off  before  the  Blackheath  team  real- 
ised what  was  happening. 

The  Babe's  fatuities  died  away  as  Har- 
greaves started  and  he  stood  silent  a  mo- 
ment. It  was  clear  that  there  was  a  good 
opening  to  hand,  barring  accidents.  The 
game  was  close  to  the  University  twenty- 
five  on  the  far  side  of  the  ground,  and  the 
Blackheath  three-quarters  were  for  the 
moment  much  too  close  to  the  scrimmage. 
It  was  impossible  to  get  through  even 
with  the  most  finished  passing  on  that  side, 


52  The  Babe,  B.A. 

and  Hargreaves  ran  right  across  parallel 
to  the  goal  disregarding  the  possibility  of 
being  collared  in  the  centre  of  the  ground 
opposite  to  the  home  goal,  but  trusting 
to  his  own  speed.  The  outside  Blackheath 
three-quarters  came  racing  along,  running 
slightly  back  in  order  to  tackle  him  as  he 
turned,  but  in  a  few  moments  it  was  clear 
that  he  was  outpaced.  Hargreaves  ran 
clear  round  him  as  a  yacht  clears  the  buoy 
with  a  few  yards  to  spare. 

"  Oh,  well  run,"  shouted  the  Babe. 
"  Don't  pass  ;  get  in  yourself." 

Hargreaves  and  the  Blackheath  back 
were  now  close  to  each  other  about  the 
level  of  the  Blackheath  twenty-five,  and 
nearly  in  the  middle  of  the  ground.  The 
Varsity  centre  three-quarters  had  run 
straight  up  the  ground  while  Hargreaves 
ran  round,  and  was  now  in  a  position  to  be 
passed  to  again,  but  two  Blackheath  three- 
quarters  were  close  to  him.  Then,  by  a 
fatal  error,  Hargreaves  wavered  a  moment, 
instead  of  again  trusting  to  his  pace,  got 
tackled,  and  in  that  moment  of  slack  speed 
his  own  centre  three-quarters  got  in  front 


vs.  Blackheath.  53 

of  him.  He  passed  wildly  and  forward. 
An  appeal,  a  whistle,  a  flag,  and  a  free 
kick. 

"  Damn,"  said  the  Babe  in  a  loud, 
angry  voice. 

The  game  flickered  about  between  the 
two  twenty-fives  for  the  next  ten  minutes, 
going  fast  and  loose,  with  a  good  deal  of 
dribbling  on  the  part  of  the  forwards,  and 
a  corresponding  amount  of  self-immolation 
on  the  part  of  the  halves,  who  hurled 
themselves  recklessly  on  the  ball  in  the 
face  of  the  fastest  rushes,  and  seemed  to 
the  unaccustomed  eye  to  be  feverishly 
courting  a  swift  and  muddy  death.  Har- 
greaves  made  a  few  futile  attempts  to  run 
through  and  failed  egregiously. 

Half-time  was  called  shortly  afterwards, 
neither  team  having  scored.  The  Babe 
hobbled  out  into  the  field  to  make  himself 
unpleasant  to  his  side.  Mr.  Sykes  fol- 
lowed, wheezing  pathetically,  and  the 
Babe's  Inverness  cloak  came  in  for  renewed 
comments  and  reproof. 

"They  are  weak  on  the  outside,"  said 
the  sage  Babe  to  Hargreaves,  "and  a 


54  The  Babe,  B.A. 

great  man  like  you  can  run  round  as  easy 
as  perdition.  You  ought  to  stand  much 
wider,  and  if  you  think  you  can  get  through 
the  centre  you  are  wrong.  Stoddard  could 
stop  fifty  of  you.  Good-bye." 

The  Blackheath  team  had  come  to  the 
same  conclusion  as  the  Babe,  and  they 
kept  the  game  tight.  They  had  quite 
realised  that  the  Varsity  three-quarters  on 
the  left  was  weak,  and  that  Hargreaves  on 
the  right  was  abominably  fast.  In  conse- 
quence they  did  their  best  to  screw  the 
scrimmage  round  to  Hargreaves'  side,  so 
as  to  hamper  him  by  not  leaving  him  room 
to  get  off.  Time  after  time  his  half  fed  him 
persistently,  and  time  after  time  "he  was 
unable  to  get  round  between  the  touch- 
line  and  the  forwards.  Meantime,  the 
Blackheath  pack,  which  were  heavier  and 
rather  better  together  than  Cambridge, 
were  working  their  way  slowly  and  stead- 
ily down  the  ground,  keeping  the  ball  close 
and  comfortable  among  them.  Har- 
greaves again  and  again,  following  the 
Babe's  advice,  stood  right  away  on  the 
left  of  the  scrimmage  when  it  approached 


vs.  Blackheath.  55 

the  right  touch-line,  but  his  vis-a-vis  as 
regularly  stood  close  to  him,  and  embraced 
him  affectionately  but  roughly  as  soon  as 
the  ball  got  to  him  and  before  he  had  time 
to  pass  ;  but  for  the  next  quarter  the  game 
was  very  tight,  and  with  the  exception  of 
a  couple  of  free  kicks  given  for  offside 
play  among  the  Blackheath  forwards,  the 
ball  rarely  left  the  scrimmage.  Even 
these  were  returned  by  the  back  into 
touch,  and  the  forwards  settled  down  on 
the  ball  again  like  swarming  bees. 

The  Babe,  meantime,  had  been  insolent 
to  the  referee,  who  was  an  old  friend,  and 
also  an  old  hand.  He  had  gone  so  far  as 
to  leave  the  game  to  take  care  of  itself 
for  a  moment  to  tell  the  Babe  candidly 
and  in  a  loud,  clear  voice  that  he  should 
be  severely  treated  afterwards,  adding  as  a 
further  insult,  "  Of  course  we  all  know  it 's 
only  you."  The  Babe  was  furious  but  im- 
potent. The  glory  of  the  ulster  and  the 
bull-pup  was  entirely  neutralised. 

But  he  soon  forgot  these  insolences  ; 
there  were  only  ten  minutes  left,  and 
neither  side  had  scored  more  than  minor 


56  The  Babe,  B.A. 

points.  To  the  unprofessional  eye  it 
seemed  likely  that  they  might  go  on  play- 
ing for  hours  like  this  without  either  side 
scoring.  The  Blackheath  forwards  gained 
ground  very  slowly,  but  this  was  made  up 
for  with  tiresome  monotony  by  the  quick 
punting  of  the  University  halves  whenever 
they  got  the  chance.  The  three-quarters 
stood  and  shivered,  and  the  University 
back  declared  bitterly  and  audibly  that  he 
might  as  well  have  stopped  at  home. 

But  the  professional  Babe  knew  better. 
If  once  the  ball  came  fairly  out,  the  three- 
quarters  would  have  a  look  in,  and  for 
himself  he  placed  his  money  on  Har- 
greaves.  And  in  defiance  of  law,  order, 
and  decorum  he  shouted  his  advice  to  the 
half  who  was  playing  substitute  for  him. 
"  Don't  punt,"  he  shouted,  "but  pass." 
The  half  at  that  moment  was  busy 
punting,  and  the  Babe  repeated  his  ad- 
vice. Two  minutes  afterwards  the  half 
took  it,  as  an  exceptional  opportunity  pre- 
sented itself,  and  passed  to  his  centre 
three-quarters,  and  the  Babe  stood  on  his 
chair.  Centre  ran  a  short  way  and  passed 


vs.  Blacltheath.  57 

to  the  left,  who  passed  back  to  centre, 
and  centre  to  right.  It  was  as  pretty  a 
piece  of  passing  as  one  would  wish  to  see 
on  a  winter's  day. 

This  was  the  moment  for  which  the 
Babe  was  waiting.  The  field  was  broken 
up  and  Hargreaves  had  the  ball.  He 
ran  :  they  all  ran.  He  ran  fastest — there 
is  nothing  like  simple  language  for  epical 
events.  He  got  a  try  which  was  not  con- 
verted into  a  goal.  But  as  no  other  points 
were  scored,  Cambridge  won  the  match  by 
one  point  to  nil. 

The  Babe  and  Mr.  Sykes  went  back  to 
take  their  tea  with  Reggie,  and  Ealing 
who  had  been  playing  the  Eton  game, 
joined  them.  The  Babe  ate  three  muffins 
with  a  rapt  air,  and  Mr.  Sykes  drank  his 
tea  out  of  the  slop-basin  like  a  Christian. 
He  took  cream  and  three  lumps  of  sugar. 
His  idea  of  how  to  eat  muffins  was  a  little 
sketchy,  but  otherwise  be  behaved  charm- 
ingly. But,  as  the  Babe  said,  to  put  pieces 
of  half-masticated  muffin  on  the  carpet 
while  you  drink  your  tea,  is  a  thing  sel- 
dom, if  ever,  done  in  the  best  houses. 


58  The  Babe,  B.A. 

Ealing  himself  eschewed  muffin  on  the 
ground  of  its  being  "bad  training,"  and 
the  Babe,  who  held  peculiar  views  on  train- 
ing, proceeded  to  express  them. 

"  One  does  every  thing  best,"  he  said, 
"  when  one  is  most  content.  Personally 
I  am  most  content  when  I  have  eaten  a 
large  lunch.  Nobody  could  play  Rugger 
in  the  morning.  Why?  Simply  because 
no  one  is  in  a  good  temper  in  the  morn- 
ing, except  those  under-vitalised  people 
who  are  never  in  a  bad  one,  and  who  also 
never  play  games.  Of  course  after  a  very 
large  lunch  one  cannot  run  quite  so  fast, 
but  one  is  serene,  and  serenity  has  much 
more  to  do  with  winning  a  match  than 
pace.  Yes,  another  cup  of  tea,  please. 
Now  Hargreaves  is  most  content  when  he 
has  had  a  little  bread  and  marmalade  and 
water.  Every  one  to  his  taste.  I  hate 
water  except  when  it 's  a  hot  bath.  Water 
is  meant  not  to  drink,  but  to  heat  and 
wash  in." 

"  Babe,  do  you  mean  to  say  you  have 
hot  baths  in  the  morning  ?" 

"  Invariably  when  the  weather  is  cold, 


vs.  Blackheath.  59 

and  a  cigarette,  whatever  the  weather  is. 
I  am  no  Charles  Kingsley,  though  I  used 
to  collect  butterflies  when  I  was  a  child." 

"  But  when  you  became  a  Babe,  you  put 
away  childish  things,"  suggested  Ealing. 

A  malignant  light  beamed  from  the 
Babe's  eye. 

"  I  ask  you  :  do  Babes  have  bull-pups  ?" 

"  I  know  one  who  has.  I  daresay  he  's 
an  exception,  though." 

"  When  I  was  at  a  private  school,"  re- 
marked the  Babe  severely,  "and  a  chap 
said  a  thing  like  that,  we  used  to  call  him 
a  funny  ass." 

Reggie  shouted. 

"Good  old  Babe.  Has  the  referee 
caught  you  yet  ?  He  belongs  to  this  col- 
lege, and  he  may  be  in  any  minute.  In 
fact,  I  asked  him  to  come  to  tea.  I  don't 
know  why  he  hasn't." 

"If  you  want  me  to  go,  say  so,"  said 
the  Babe. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.  It  was  only  for  your 
sake  I  suggested  it.  Smoke." 

The  Babe  was  limping  about  the  room 
and  came  upon  a  set  of  chessmen. 


60  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  I  want  to  play  chess,"  he  said.  "  Chess 
is  the  most  delightful  game  if  you  treat  it 
as  a  game  of  pure  chance.  You  ought  to 
move  your  queen  into  the  middle  of  the 
board  and  then  see  what  happens.  To  re- 
duce it  to  the  level  of  a  sum  in  advanced 
mathematics,  is  a  scandal  and  an  outrage. 
To  calculate  the  effect  of  a  move  takes 
away  all  the  excitement." 

"  You  may sal ways  calculate  it  wrong." 

"  In  that  case  it  becomes  a  nuisance. 
Reggie,  will  you  play  ?  " 

"  No." 

"Ealing?" 

"  I  can't.     I  don't  know  the  moves." 

"  Nor  do  I.  We  should  be  about  equal. 
Supposing  you  set  two  Heathen  Chinese 
to  play  chess,  which  would  win  ?  " 

"Is  it  a  riddle?" 

The  Babe  sank  down  again  in  his 
chair. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said.  "If  it  is,  I 
give  up.  By  the  way  what  are  you  two 
chaps  doing  to-morrow  ?" 

"  Stop  in  bed  till  ten,"  said  Reggie,  "  it 
being  the  Day  of  Rest :  Chapel.  Break- 


vs.  Blackheath.  61 

fast.  Lunch.  Pitt.  Tea.  Pitt.  Sunday 
Club." 

"  Do  you  belong  to  that  ?  I  thought  it 
was  semi-clerical." 

"  Yes,  we  are  all  lay  readers." 

"  I  went  once,"  said  the  Babe.  "We 
ate  what  is  described  as  a  cold  collation. 
Then  we  all  sat  round,  and  somebody 
made  jokes  and  we  all  laughed.  I  made 
jokes  too,  but  nobody  sat  round  me.  There 
was  a  delightful,  decorous  gaiety  about 
the  proceedings.  I  think  we  sang  hymns 
afterwards,  or  else  we  looked  at  photo- 
graphs of  cathedrals,  I  forget  which. 
Hymns  and  photographs  are  so  much 
alike." 

"  O  Lord,  what  do  you  mean  ?  "  asked 
Reggie. 

"  They  are  both  like  Sunday  evening, 
and  things  which  are  like  the  same  thing 
are  like  one  another.  At  eleven  we 
parted." 

"  The  wicked  old  Babe  does  n't  care  for 
simple  pleasures,"  said  Ealing.  "  Oh,  he 
knows  a  thing  or  two." 

"  It  's  always  absurd  for  a  lot  of  people 


62  The  Babe,  B.A. 

to  meet  like  that,"  continued  the  Babe. 
"  The  whole  point  of  dining  clubs  ought 
to  be  to  have  a  lot  of  members  with 
utterly  different  tastes.  Then  you  see 
they  can't  all  talk  about  their  tastes,  they 
can't  all  sit  round  and  do  one  thing,  and 
consequently  they  all  talk  rot,  which  is 
the  only  rational  form  of  conversation. 
If  there  is  one  thing  I  detest  more  than 
another  it  is  cliques.  Individually  I  love 
most  of  the  members  of  the  Sunday  Club, 
collectively  I  cannot  even  like  them.  And 
the  same  thing  applies  to  the  Athenaeum." 
"Then  why  do  you  belong?" 
"In  order  to  go  to  Chapel  in  a  pink 
and  white  tie,  and  also  because  I  love 
the  members  individually.  I  must  go. 
Where  's  Bill  ?  Come  along  under  my 
ulster.  Good-bye,  you  people." 


V. — THE  WORK-CLUB. 

For  men  must  work. 

KINGSLEV. 

REGGIE  and  Baling  were  working  to- 
gether. They  had  formed  a  work  club  con- 
sistingonly  of  themselves,  and  it  was  to  meet 
for  the  first  time  this  morning.  In  order  to 
ensure  the  success  of  the  first  meeting  they 
had  had  a  heavy  breakfast  at  a  quarter  to 
nine,  because,  as  Reggie  said,  brain  work  is 
more  exhausting  than  anything  else,  after 
which  they  had  played  a  little  snob-cricket 
in  the  archway  between  the  two  halves  of 
Fellows'  Buildings,  in  order  to  clear  the 
brain,  until  their  names  were  taken  by  the 
porter  and  entered  in  the  report  book. 
So  they  adjourned  to  the  bridge  for  a 
little  to  finish  their  pipes,  and  about  a 
quarter  to  eleven  sat  down  one  at  each 
side  of  Reggie's  larger  table,  with  a  box 
of  cigarettes  and  a  tobacco  jar  between 
them,  Reggie's  alarum  clock,  which  had 
been  induced  to  go,  two  copies  of  Pro- 
63 


64  The  Babe,  B.A. 

fessor  Jebb's  CEdipus  Tyrannus,  at  which 
they  were  both  working,  one  small  Liddell 
&  Scott,  and  a  translation  of  the  play  as 
edited  in  Mr.  Bohn's  helpful  series  of  clas- 
sical authors,  in  case  Professor  Jebb 
proved  too  free  in  his  translation,  "  for  the 
difficulties,"  as  Reggie  acutely  observed, 
"of  rendering  Greek  both  literally  and 
elegantly  cannot  be  over-stated  :  indeed, 
it  is  to  be  feared  that  some  of  our  best 
English  scholars  sacrifice  literal  rendering 
to  the  latter." 

So  Ealing  threw  a  sofa  cushion  at  his 
head,  and  the  alarum  clock  was  knocked 
over  on  the  floor,  and  instantly  went  off. 
The  noise  was  terrific,  and  they  had  to 
stifle  it  in  a  college  gown,  and  put  it  in 
the  gyp  cupboard.  Then  they  began. 

For  ten  minutes  or  so  there  was  silence, 
and  then  Ealing  in  an  abstracted  voice 
asked  for  the  Liddell  &  Scott,  and  Reggie, 
not  to  be  behind-hand,  underlined  one  of 
Professor  Jebb's  notes  with  a  purple  indel- 
ible pencil.  The  point  was  blunt,  and  he 
tried  to  make  it  sharper  by  the  aid  of  a 
dinner  knife.  This  only  resulted  in  a 


The  Work-Club.  65 

gradual  shortening  of  the  pencil.  Also 
the  point  became  slightly  notchier. 

Ealing,  finding  it  impossible  to  go  on, 
while  this  was  being  done,  had  been 
watching  the  proceeding  at  first  with  deep 
interest,  which  passed  into  a  state  of  wild, 
unreasonable  impatience. 

"  How  clumsy  you  are,"  he  said  at 
length  "  Here,  pass  it  to  me.  Fancy  not 
being  able  to  sharpen  a  pencil." 

There  is,  as  every  one  knows,  only  one 
individual  in  the  world  who  can  sharpen 
pencils,  and  that  is  oneself.  The  same  re- 
mark applies  to  poking  fires.  So  Reggie 
replied  airily — 

"  Oh,  never  mind,  old  chap.  Get  on 
with  your  work.  I  can  do  it  beauti- 
fully." 

But  the  pencil  got  rapidly  shorter,  and 
in  order  to  prove  to  his  own  satisfaction 
that  nobody  else  in  the  world  could  do  it, 
he  passed  it  over  to  Ealing  with  the  din- 
ner knife.  His  fingers  were  purple,  and 
should  have  been  so  indelibly,  but  he 
hopefully  retired  into  his  bedroom  to  see 
if  it  could  be  washed  off. 


66  The  Babe,  B.A. 

It  was  clear  at  once  to  Ealing  that 
Reggie's  method  was  altogether  at  fault, 
and  he  rough-hewed  the  pencil  again  so 
as  to  be  able  to  set  to  work  properly. 
Then  the  clock  on  the  mantelpiece,  which 
had  been  set  going,  after  the  alarum  be- 
came derelict,  struck  eleven  and  Reggie 
returned  from  his  bedroom. 

"  Of  course  that  clock  is  fast,"  said 
Ealing. 

"  It 's  ten  minutes  slow.  Why  should 
you  think  it  was  fast  ?  " 

"  We  must  have  been  working  longer 
than  I  thought.  We  had  breakfast  at 
half-past  eight  and  we  began  working  al- 
most immediately  after,  did  n't  we  ?" 

"  Yes.  We  knocked  up  a  bit  in  the 
arch,  you  know." 

"  Only  about  ten  minutes.  I  should 
say  we  had  set  to  work  well  before  ten." 

"  Perhaps  we  did,"  said  Reggie,  "but  I 
haven't  got  through  much  yet.  How's 
the  pencil  getting  on  ?  " 

"  Oh,  pretty  well :  but  you  went  the 
wrong  way  about  it  at  first  ! " 

"  There  won't   be  much  left    to  write 


The  Work-Club.  67 

with,  will  there  ?  "  asked  Reggie,  looking 
at  it  doubtfully. 

"  It  will  last  you  for  weeks  with  proper 
care,"  said  Ealing.  "  I  think  I  never  saw 
so  blunt  a  knife.  Why  have  n't  you  got 
a  proper  knife  ?  " 

Reggie  got  up  from  the  table,  and 
strolled  across  to  the  window,  and  looked 
out. 

"  Be  quick,  old  chap,"  he  said.  "  I 
can't  go  on  till  it 's  ready.  I  'm  in  the 
middle  of  underlining  something." 

He  saw  an  acquaintance  below,  and 
called  to  him. 

"  The  work  club 's  started  this  morn- 
ing," he  shouted.  "  We  're  getting  on 
beautifully." 

(Confused  sound  from  below,  inaudible 
to  Ealing.) 

"  Yes,  he  's  just  sharpening  my  pencil. 
Is  n't  it  kind  of  him  ?  He  says  he 's  get- 
ting on  with  it  pretty  well." 

(Murmur.) 

"  No,  not  very  far,  but  I  'm  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  chorus,  and  I  'm  reading  Jebb's 
notes  and  marking  them," 


68  The  Babe,  B.A. 

(Murmur.) 

"  Oh,  hours  ;  ever  since  about  half-past 
nine  or  so." 

(Murmur.) 

"What?" 

(Murmur.) 

"  Yes,  Jebb  's  not  literal  enough  for  me. 

I  like  to  get  at  the  real  meaning  of 

Oh!" 

The  sofa  cushion  flew  out  of  the  win- 
dow and  lay  on  the  grass  below.  When 
Reggie  turned  round  Ealing  was  absorbed 
in  his  book. 

"Where's  the  pencil?"  asked  Reggie. 

"There  isn't  any,"  said  Ealing. 

"  Well,  I  must  go  and  pick  that  cushion 
up.  What  a  lot  of  time  you  've  made  me 
waste.  Also  go  to  Severs's  and  buy  a  new 
pencil.  I  can't  work  without." 

"  This  is  all  the  thanks  I  get,"  said 
Ealing  bitterly. 

"  No,  I  'm  awfully  obliged  to  you,  but 
it  hasn't  done  me  much  good,  you  know. 
You  see  you  acted  with  the  best  inten- 
tion, which  is  always  fatal.  Where 's  my 
cap  ? " 


The  Work-Club.  69 

"  I  should  think  you  could  borrow  a 
pencil,"  said  Ealing. 

Reggie  considered  a  moment,  with  his 
head  on  one  side. 

"I  think  not.  It  would  be  better  to 
get  one  of  my  own.  Then  I  shall  have 
one,  you  see.  Come  with  me  ?" 

The  two  went  down  together.  As  the 
cushion  was  lying  on  the  grass,  it  was 
necessary  to  take  shots  in  turn  at  Reggie's 
open  window,  to  avoid  going  upstairs 
again.  This  was  much  more  amusing 
but  it  took  a  little  longer  than  the  other 
would  have  done,  and  the  University 
clock  struck  half-past  eleven  in  a  slow  re- 
gretful manner.  The  successful  shot, 
about  which  an  even  sixpence  was  laid, 
was  made  by  Ealing,  and  they  crossed 
King's  parade  to  buy  a  pencil.  As  they 
got  to  the  lodge  they  were  further  grati- 
fied by  the  sight  of  the  Babe  in  the  road 
opposite  on  a  bicycle,  which  he  rode 
exceedingly  badly  and  with  a  curious, 
swoopy,  wobbly  motion.  Mr.  Sykes  trot- 
ted along  at  a  distance  of  some  twenty 
yards  off,  with  the  air  of  not  belonging 


70  The  Babe,  B.A. 

to  anybody,  thoroughly  ashamed  of  his 
master.  They  called  to  the  Babe,  and 
he  being  rash  enough  to  try  to  wave  his 
hand  to  them,  ran  straight  into  the  curb- 
stone opposite  King's  gate,  and  dis- 
mounted hurriedly,  stepping  into  a  large 
puddle.  His  face  was  flushed  with  his 
exertions,  but,  as  he  wrung  the  water  out 
from  the  bottom  of  his  trousers,  he  said 
genially : 

"  This  is  dry  work,  though  it  does  n't 
look  it.  A  small  whiskey  and  soda,  Reg- 
gie, would  not  hurt  me.  No  doubt  you 
have  such  a  thing  in  your  room." 

"  What  about  Bill  Sykes  ?  " 

The  Babe  thought  for  a  moment  and 
mopped  his  forehead,  but  in  a  few  sec- 
onds a  smile  of  solution  lighted  his  face. 

"  William  shall  be  chained  to  the  bicy- 
cle," he  said.  "  Thus  no  one  will  steal 
the  bicycle  for  fear  of  William,  and  Wil- 
liam will  not  venture  to  run  away,  as  he 
would  n't  be  seen  going  about  the  streets 
with  a  bicycle  in  tow  for  anything.  He 
despises  the  bicycle.  I  can  hardly  make 
him  follow.  Come  here,  darling." 


The  Work-Club.  71 

But  Mr.  Sykes  required  threats  and 
coaxing.  From  the  first,  so  the  Babe 
said,  he  was  utterly  opposed  to  the  idea 
of  the  bicycle,  and  had,  when  he  thought 
himself  unobserved,  been  seen  to  bite  it 
maliciously. 

It  struck  a  quarter  to  twelve. 

The  Babe  was  in  a  peculiarly  sociable 
humour  this  morning,  and  after  a  whiskey 
and  soda,  "  a  cigarette  "  as  he  remarked, 
"  would  not  be  amiss,"  and  it  was  not  till 
he  had  smoked  two,  and  been  told  with 
brutal  plainness  that  he  was  not  wanted 
in  the  least,  that  Reggie  discovered  that 
he  had  forgotten  to  buy  his  pencil.  This 
necessitated  his  and  Ealing's  making  an- 
other journey  to  King's  parade,  and  the 
Babe,  who  bore  no  malice  whatsoever  at 
being  told  to  go  away,  took  an  arm  of 
each,  and  insisted  in  walking  across  the 
grass  in  the  hard,  convincing  light  of 
noonday. 

It  was  now  seven  minutes  past  twelve, 
and  opposite  the  fountain  they  met  the 
Provost,  at  the  sight  of  whom  the  Babe 
assumed  his  most  affable  manner,  and 


72  The  Babe,  B.A. 

they  talked  together  very  pleasantly  for  a 
minute  or  two. 

"  Indeed,"  as  he  remarked  as  they  went 
on  their  way,  "  this  little  meeting  should 
quite  take  the  sting  out  of  the  fact  that 
the  Porter  of  your  colleges  has  just  re- 
tired into  his  hole  in  the  gate,  with  the 
object  no  doubt,  of  reporting  you  both 
for  walking  across  the  grass.  And  as  you 
have  already  been  reported  for  playing 
squash,  this  will  make  twice." 

Bill  Sykes  meantime  had  been  the  ob- 
ject of  much  attention  on  the  part  of  the 
casual  passers-by,  and  he  was  sitting  there 
chattering  with  impotent  rage,  the  centre 
of  a  ring  of  people,  in  the  humiliating 
position  of  being  chained  to  a  bicycle, 
which  he  despised  and  detested.  At  the 
sight  of  the  Babe,  however,  he  forgot  for 
the  moment  about  the  bicycle,  jumped 
up,  and  tried  to  run  towards  him.  Thus 
it  was  not  unnatural  that  the  bicycle  top- 
pled heavily  over  onto  the  top  of  him. 
Mr.  Sykes  was  very  angry,  the  bell  rang 
loudly,  and  one  handle  of  the  bicycle  was 
bent. 


The  Work-Club.  73 

Mr.  Sykes  was  released,  and  the  Babe 
who  was  not  expert  at  mounting,  though 
he  said  he  was  the  very  devil  when  he 
got  going,  hopped  slowly  down  King's 
Parade  for  a  hundred  yards  or  so  with 
one  foot  on  the  step,  making  ineffectual 
efforts  to  get  into  the  saddle.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
he  would  ever  succeed,  but  about  opposite 
the  north  end  of  the  Chapel,  he  accom- 
plished this  feat,  and  after  describing  two 
or  three  graceful  but  involuntary  swoops 
to  the  right  and  left,  secured  the  treadles, 
and  settled  comfortably  down  into  one 
of  the  tram  lines.  At  this  moment  the 
tram  came  round  the  corner  by  St.  Mary's, 
and  the  bicycle,  with  its  precious  burden, 
seemed  doomed  to  instant  annihilation. 
The  Babe,  however,  got  off  just  in  time, 
and  consoled  himself  by  swearing  at  the 
driver,  and  he  disappeared  among  the 
traffic  of  Trinity  Street  still  hopping. 

"It's  like  the  White  Knight  riding," 
said  Ealing.  "  Look  sharp,  Reggie,  with 
that  beastly  pencil.  It 's  struck  a  quarter 
past." 


74  The  Babe,  B.A. 

Between  one  thing  and  another,  it  was 
creditable  that  they  were  ready  to  begin 
work  again  at  half-past  twelve.  Reggie 
finished  underlining  his  note,  the  point 
of  which  he  could  not  quite  understand, 
and  so  put  a  query  in  the  margin,  and 
Ealing  went  back  to  the  word  he  was 
looking  out  in  Liddcll  &  Scott,  an  hour 
and  a  quarter  before. 

Ten  minutes  later  Reggie  observed 
that  the  Babe  had  forgotten  his  cover- 
coat,  which  was  lying  on  a  chair,  and 
they  debated  with  some  heat  whether  it 
had  better  be  taken  to  him  at  once. 
Eventually  they  tossed  up,  as  to  who 
should  do  it ;  Ealing  lost  the  toss,  and 
they  both  jumped  up  with  alacrity. 

"  It 's  a  beastly  nuisance  when  one  has 
just  settled  down  to  work  again,"  he  said. 

"  I  won,"  remarked  Reggie,  "  and  I  am 
going.  By  Jove,  there 's  that  Varsity 
clock  striking  a  quarter  to  one.  Here, 
let's  both  go.  It's  no  use  working  for 
a  quarter  of  an  hour.  One  can't  do  any- 
thing in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  I  must 
lunch  at  one,  as  I  'm  playing  footer." 


The  Work-Club.  75 

"  All  right.  Of  course  we  work  after 
tea  for  two  hours  more  as  we  settled. 
That  will  make  five,  and  one  more  after 
Hall." 

"  And  six  hours  steady  work  a  day," 
said  Reggie  cheerfully,  "  is  as  much  as 
is  good  for  any  man.  I  begin  not  to  at- 
tend after  I  have  worked,  really  worked, 
you  know,  for  six  hours." 


VI. — THE  BABE'S  PICNIC. 

Row,  brothers,  row, 
The  stream  runs  slow, 
We  dont  know  how  to  row 
A  nd  the  oars  stick  so. 

LIGHT-BLUE  LYRICS. 

THE  Babe  was  no  waterman,  and  he 
never  pretended  to  be,  but  this  did  not 
prevent  his  getting  up  a  quiet  picnic  on 
the  upper  river  one  delightful  afternoon 
towards  the  end  of  May.  There  were 
only  to  be  four  of  them,  not  counting 
Mr.  Sykes — though  it  was  impossible  not 
to  count  Mr.  Sykes,  the  others  being 
Reggie,  Ealing,  and  Jack  Marsden. 

Marsden,  who  had  once,  when  a  Fresh- 
man, been  coached  on  the  river,  by  an 
angry  man  in  shorts,  and  had  been 
abandoned  as  hopeless  after  his  first  trial, 
was  naturally  supposed  by  the  Babe  to 
be  an  accomplished  oarsman,  and  to 
have  probed  to  its  depths  the  nature  of 
boats  and  oars  and  stretchers,  so  he  was 
deputed  to  find  a  boat  which  held  four 
people,  several  hampers,  and  a  dog,  and 
76 


The  Babe's  Picnic.  77 

which  was  warranted  not  to  shy  or  bolt, 
and  to  be  quiet  with  children.  It  was 
understood  that  the  Babe  was  not  going 
to  row  or  steer,  his  office  being  merely 
to  provide  food  for  them  all,  and  if  possi- 
ble to  prevent  Mr.  Sykes  from  leaping 
overboard  when  they  passed  the  bathing- 
sheds,  and  biting  indiscriminately  at  the 
bathers,  whom  for  some  reason  of  his 
own  he  regarded  with  peculiar  but  per- 
fectly ineradicable  disfavour.  The  Babe 
had  taken  him  up  the  river  only  the 
week  before,  but  opposite  the  town  sheds 
Sykes  had  been  unable  to  restrain  him- 
self, had  jumped  off  the  boat  into  the 
water  and  chased  to  land  a  bland  and 
timid  shopkeeper,  to  whom  the  Babe 
owed  money,  so  it  looked  as  if  it  was 
a  put-up  job  ;  the  man  had  regained  the 
steps  of  the  bathing-shed  only  just  in 
time  to  save  himself  from  being  pinned 
in  the  calf  of  the  leg. 

The  Babe  and  Jack  were  to  start  from 
the  raft  by  Trinity  at  three,  and  pick  up 
Reggie  and  Ealing  opposite  King's.  They 
were  then  to  row  up  to  Byron's  Pool  (so- 


78  The  Babe,  B.A. 

called  because  there  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  Byron  was  not  extremely  fond 
of  it,)  bathe  and  have  tea,  and  afterwards 
go  a  mile  or  so  farther,  and  have  dinner. 
The  Babe  who  just  now  was  gated  at  ten, 
confidently  hoped  to  be  home  at  or  before 
that  hour,  on  the  sole  ground  that  Napo- 
leon had  once  said  there  was  no  such 
word  as  impossible. 

They  paddled  quietly  up  to  the  Mill 
just  above  the  town,  and  here  it  was 
necessary  to  haul  the  boat  over  the  bank 
separating  the  upper  river  from  the  lower. 
The  Babe  who  was  beautifully  dressed  in 
white  flannels,  yellow  boots,  and  a  straw 
hat  with  a  new  riband,  courteously  declined 
giving  the  smallest  assistance  to  the  others, 
but  watched  the  operation  with  interest 
and  apparent  approval,  in  consequence  of 
which  he  was  advised  by  Reggie,  who  had 
got  hot  and  rather  dirty  with  his  exertions, 
to  drop  that  infernally  patronising  attitude. 
Here  too  Mr.  Sykes  first  sniffed  the  prey, 
for  he  had  caught  sight  of  the  bathers  at 
the  town  sheds  across  the  fields,  and  was 
trotting  quietly  off  in  their  direction, 


The  Babe's  Picnic.  79 

secretly  licking  his  lips,  but  outwardly 
pretending  that  he  was  merely  going  for 
a  little  airy  walk  on  his  own  account. 
The  Babe  had  to  run  after  him  and  haul 
him  back,  for  he  affected  to  hear  neither 
whistling  nor  shouting,  and  on  his  return 
he  kept  smelling  suspiciously  at  the  legs 
of  casual  passers-by  as  if  he  rather  sus- 
pected that  they  were  going  to  bathe  too. 
Though  the  lower  river  is  one  of  the 
foulest  streams  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
the  upper  river  is  one  of  the  fairest.  It 
wanders  up  between  fresh  green  fields, 
bordered  by  tall  yellow  flags,  loosestrife, 
and  creamy  meadow-sweet,  all  unconscious 
of  the  fate  that  awaits  it  from  vile  man 
below.  Pollarded  willows  lean  over  the 
bank  and  listen  to  the  wind,  and  here 
and  there  a  company  of  white  poplars, 
the  most  distinguished  of  trees,  come 
trooping  down  to  the  water's  edge.  The 
stream  itself  carpeted  with  waving  weeds 
strolls  along  clear  and  green  from  the 
reflection  of  the  trees,  troops  of  bleak 
poise  and  dart  in  the  shallows,  or  shelter 
in  the  subaqueous  forests,  and  the  Babe 


8o  The  Babe,  B.A. 

said  he  saw  a  trout,  a  statement  to  which 
no  importance  whatever  need  be  attached. 
Looking  back  across  a  mile  of  fields  you 
see  the  pinnacles  of  King's  rise  grey  and 
grave  into  the  sky ;  and  in  front,  Gran- 
chester,  with  its  old-fashioned  garden- 
cradled  houses,  presided  over  by  a  church 
tower  on  the  top  of  which,  as  a  surveyor 
once  remarked,  there  is  a  plus  sign  which 
is  useful  as  a  fixed  point,  nestles  in  a 
green  windless  hollow. 

But  Bill,  like  Gallio,  cared  for  none  of 
those  things.  He  knew  perfectly  well 
that  they  were  going  to  pass  the  town 
bathing-place  very  shortly,  and  after  half 
a  mile  or  so  more  of  uninteresting  river, 
the  University  bathing-place.  The  Babe 
had  taken  him  up  here  once  when  he  had 
bathed  himself,  and  though  Mr.  Sykes 
realised  that  he  must  not  bite  his  master, 
whatever  foolish  andungentlemanly  thing 
he  chose  to  do,  he  was  very  cold  and  re- 
served to  him  afterwards.  But  he  meant 
to  behave  exactly  as  he  pleased  at  the 
town  bathing-place,  and  a  hundred  yards 
before  they  got  there,  he  was  standing  in 


The  Babe's  Picnic.  81 

the  bow  of  the  boat,  uttering  short  malig- 
nant growls.  The  Babe,  however,  pulled 
him  back  by  the  tail,  and  muffled  him  up 
in  four  towels,  and  Mr.  Sykes  rolled  about 
the  bottom  of  the  boat,  and  from  within 
the  towels  came  sounds  of  deep  dissatis- 
faction just  as  if  there  were  a  discontented 
bull-pup  in  the  middle  of  them. 

Beyond  the  town  bathing-place  stands 
a  detached  garden,  with  bright  flower-beds 
cut  out  in  a  lawn  of  short  green  turf. 
Here  the  Babe  conceived  a  violent  desire 
to  land  and  have  tea,  which  he  was  not 
permitted  to  do  ;  and  above  that  runs  a 
stretch  of  river,  very  properly  known  as 
Paradise,  seeing  which  the  Babe  had  a  fit  of 
rusticity  and  said  he  would  go  no  farther, 
but  live  evermore  under  the  trees  with 
Mr.  Sykes,  and  grow  a  honey-coloured 
beard.  He  would  encamp  under  the  open 
sky,  and  on  fine  afternoons  would  be  seen 
sitting  on  the  river  bank  dabbling  his  feet 
in  the  water,  and  playing  on  a  rustic  pipe 
made  of  reeds.  He  would  keep  a  hen  and  a 
cow  and  a  bed  of  strawberries,  and  it  should 
be  always  a  summer  afternoon.  Indeed, 


82  The  Babe,  B.A. 

had  not  a  water-rat  been  seen  at  the  mo- 
ment,-which  compelled  him  to  throw  Mr. 
Sykes  overboard  to  see  whether  he  could 
catch  it, — which  he  could  not — there  is 
no  knowing  what  developments  this  rustic 
phase  would  have  undergone.  So  they 
went  slowly  on,  making  a  small  detour  up 
to  the  Granchester  Mill,  where  the  water 
came  hurrying  out  cool  and  foamy,  and 
where  the  Babe  asked  an  elderly  man, 
who  was  fishing  intently  on  the  bank, 
whether  he  had  had  any  bites,  which 
seemed  to  infuriate  him  strangely,  for  he 
was  fishing  with  a  fly  ;  drifted  down  again 
under  a  big  chestnut  tree,  all  covered  with 
pyramids  of  white  blossoms,  and  turned 
up  the  left  arm  of  the  river.  The  water 
was  shallower  here,  and  now  and  then 
gravelly  shoals  appeared  above  the  sur- 
face. They  frequently  ran  aground,  and 
made  no  less  than  three  futile  attempts  to 
get  round  a  sharp  corner,  where  the 
stream  running  swiftly  took  the  nose  of 
the  boat  into  the  bank,  and  the  Babe  swore 
gently  at  them  all,  and  told  them  to  mark 
the  finish,  and  get  their  hands  away. 


The  Babe's  Picnic.  83 

A  long  lane  of  quiet  shallow  water  leads 
to  the  tail  of  the  pool,  and  here  the  river 
spreads  out  into  a  broad  deep  basin. 
Grey  sluice  gates,  flanked  with  red  brick 
form  the  head  of  it,  and  on  one  side 
stretches  out  a  green  meadow,  on  the 
other  there  rises  out  of  an  undergrowth 
of  hazel  and  hemlock,  a  copse  of  tall  trees, 
where  the  nightingales  always  omit  to 
sing.  They  ran  the  boat  in  at  the  edge 
of  the  copse,  and  Reggie  lighted  the 
spirit  lamp  to  boil  the  kettle  for  tea,  while 
the  Babe  tied  up  Mr.  Sykes,  lest  he  should 
forget  himself  at  the  sight  of  four  bathers. 

Among  sensuous  pleasures,  bathing  on 
a  hot  day  stands  alone,  and  Byron's 
Pool  is  in  the  first  flight  of  bathing 
places.  There  are  some  who  prefer 
Romney  Weir,  and  say  that  bathing  is 
nought  unless  you  plunge  into  a  soda 
water  of  bubbles ;  some  think  that  the 
essence  of  bathing  is  a  mere  pickling  of 
the  human  form  in  brine,  and  are  not 
happy  except  in  the  sea  ;  to  others  the 
joie  de  baigner  consists  of  flashing  through 
the  air  much  as  M.  Dore  has  pictured 


84  The  Babe,  B.A. 

Satan  falling  down  from  Heaven.  But 
in  Byron's  Pool  the  reflective,  or  what  we 
may  call  the  garden  bather  is  well  off. 
He  has  clean  water  deep  to  the  edge,  a 
grassy  slope  shadowed  by  trees  to  dry  on, 
and  a  boat  to  take  a  header  from.  Even 
Mr.  Stevenson,  a  precisian  in  these  mat- 
ters, would  allow  "that  the  imagination 
takes  a  share  in  such  a  cleansing."  And 
by  the  time  they  were  dressed,  the  kettle 
was  boiling,  and  Fortune  smiled  on  them. 
The  Babe  refused,  however,  to  stir 
before  he  had  drunk  four  cups  of  tea,  and 
in  consequence  the  kettle  had  to  be  boiled 
again. 

o 

"Besides,"  said  he,  "  Mr.  Sykes  has  n't 
had  his  second  cup." 

It  was  generally  felt  that  this  was  more 
important  than  the  Babe's  fourth  cup,  and 
Reggie  filled  the  kettle. 

"  The  Babe  's  pensive,"  he  said,  "  What 
is  it,  Babe  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Sometimes  I  get  pen- 
sive on  fine  days  or  on  wet  evenings,  but 
it  does  n't  usually  last  long.  I  think  I 
want  to  fall  in  love." 


The  Babe's  Picnic.  85 

"  Well  it  's  May  week  next  week." 
"  One  is  always  supposed  to  fall  in  love 
with  each  other's  sisters  in  May  week," 
remarked  the  Babe  with  a  fine  disregard 
of  grammar.  "  But  the  sisters  either  die 
of  consumption  or  else  the  Dean  snaps 
them  up,  and  so  it  does  n't  come  off. 
Besides  one  so  seldom  does  what  one  is 
supposed  to  do." 

"  Not  often.      Byron  was  supposed  to 
bathe  here  for  instance,  and  you  are  sup- 
posed to  be  in  by  ten  to-night,  Babe." 
"  Napoleon  said — "  began  the  Babe. 
"  Dry  up.       Why  did  they  gate  you  ?  " 
"  For  repeated  warnings,  I  believe.      I 
never  asked  them  to  warn  me.     They  go 
and  warn   me,"  said  the   Babe,  getting  a 
little  shrill,   "and  then  they  go  and  gate 
me  for  it.      I  have  been  allowed  no  voice 
whatever  in  the  matter." 

"  What  did  they  warn  you  about  ?  " 
"  Oh,  it  was   Bill  and    the  bicycle  be- 
tween them,  and  the  time,  and  the  place. 
Life  is  a  sad  business,  and  mine  is  a  hard 
lot." 

"  You  are  a  bad  lot,"  suggested  Jack. 


86  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"Jack,  for  God's  sake  don't  be  funny," 
said  Ealing. 

"  I  thought  the  Babe  wanted  a  little 
cheering  up.  I  know  he  likes  being 
called  a  bad  lot.  He  is  n't  really." 

"It  is  quite  true,"  said  the  Babe  in  a 
hollow  voice.  "  I  have  tried  to  go  to  the 
devil,  and  I  can't.  It  is  the  most  tedious 
process.  Virtue  and  simplicity  are  stamped 
on  my  face  and  my  nature.  I  am  like 
Queen  Elizabeth.  I  was  really  cut  out 
to  be  a  milkmaid.  I  don't  want  to  get 
drunk,  or  to  cultivate  the  lower  female. 
The  more  wine  I  drink,  the  sleepier  I 
get ;  I  have  to  pinch  myself  to  keep 
awake,  and  I  should  be  sleeping  like  a 
dead  pig  long  before  I  got  the  least  in- 
toxicated. Even  then  if  you  woke  me 
up  I  could  say  the  most  difficult  words 
like  Ranjitsinghi  without  the  least  inco- 
herence. And  as  for  the  lower  female 
— well,  I  had  to  wait  at  the  station  the 
other  day  for  half  an  hour,  so  I  thought 
it  was  a  good  opportunity  to  talk  to  the 
barmaid  at  the  refreshment  room.  So  I 
ordered  a  whiskey  and  soda  and  called 
her  'Miss.'  I  did  indeed." 


The  Babe's  Picnic.  87 

"What  a  wicked  Babe." 

"  I  did  call  her  Miss.  '  Miss,'  I  tell 
you,"  shouted  the  Babe.  "Then  I  said 
it  was  a  beautiful  day,  and  she  said  'Yes, 
dear.'  She  called  me  'dear,'  and  I  sub- 
mitted. I  did  n't  throw  the  whiskey  and 
soda  at  her,  I  did  n't  call  for  help  or  give 
her  in  charge.  I  determined  to  go 
through  with  it.  She  was  a  mass  of  well- 
matured  charms,  and  she  breathed  heav- 
ily through  her  nose.  Round  her  neck 
she  had  a  massive  silver  locket  on  with 
'  Pizgah,'  or  '  Kibroth  Hataavah,'  or  '  Je- 
hovah Nisi '  upon  it." 

"  Decree  Nisi,"  suggested  Ealing. 

"  She  looked  affectionately  at  me,"  con- 
tinued the  Babe,  "  and  a  cold  shudder  ran 
through  me.  She  asked  me  if  I  would 
treat  her  to  a  glass  of  port,  port,  at  a 
quarter-past  four  in  the  afternoon.  I  said, 
'  By  all  means,'  and  she  pulled  a  sort  of 
lever,  the  kind  of  thing  you  put  a  train 
into  a  siding  with,  and  out  came  port, 
which  she  drank.  Then  she  said  smil- 
ingly, *'Ave  n't  seen  you  for  a  long  time,' 
which  was  quite  true,  as  I  'd  never  set 
foot  in  the  place  before,  and  she  won't 


88  The  Babe,  B.A. 

see  me  again  for  an  equally  long  time. 
I  waited  there  ten  minutes,  ten  whole 
ghastly  minutes,  and  the  words  froze  on 
my  tongue,  and  the  thoughts  in  my  brain. 
For  the  life  of  me  I  could  not  think  of 
another  thing  to  say.  She  continued  to 
smile  at  me  all  the  time.  She  smiled  for 
ten  minutes  without  stopping.  And  so  we 
parted.  The  kettle  is  boiling,  Reggie." 

The  Babe  mixed  Mr.  Sykes's  second  cup 
for  him  and  drank  his  fourth. 

"  It  is  no  use,"  he  said.  "  I  am  irre- 
deemably silly,  and  I  have  no  other  char- 
acteristic whatever.  My  golden  youth  is 
slipping  from  me  in  the  meantime." 

Reggie  shouted. 

"The  Babe  thinks  he  is  growing  old. 
We  don't  agree  with  him.  Of  course  he 
is  old  in  everything  else,  but  not  in  years. 
Babe,  if  you  're  ready  we  '11  go  on.  We  Ve 
got  to  haul  the  boat  over  here. 

The  Babe  jumped  up  with  sudden  alac- 
rity. 

"  All  right.  Mr.  Sykes  and  I  will  get 
out.  We  shall  only  be  in  the  way.  Come 
on,  Bill." 


The  Babe's  Picnic.  89 

"  No,  Babe,"  said  Jack,  "  you  shirked  be- 
fore. You  shall  at  least  carry  the  hampers." 

"  I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind,"  said 
the  Babe  with  dignity,  and  on  this  point 
he  was  quite  polite  but  perfectly  firm. 

They  rowed  a  mile  or  so  farther  up, 
and  the  Babe  selected  a  suitable  place  for 
dinner,  at  the  edge  of  a  hayfield  and  under 
a  willow  tree,  and  a  smile  of  kind  indul- 
gence towards  the  world  in  general  began 
to  overscore  his  fruitless  regrets  of  the 
afternoon.  It  was  after  eight  when  they 
began  dinner,  and  the  Babe's  commissariat 
was  plentiful  and  elaborate.  The  only 
dish  that  failed  to  give  satisfaction  was 
the  toasted  cheese  with  which  he  insisted 
they  should  finish  dinner.  It  was  made 
in  the  tea  kettle,  and  when  melted,  poured 
out  through  the  spout  on  to  biscuits.  Mr. 
Sykes  and  the  Babe  alone  attempted  to 
eat  it,  and  Mr.  Sykes  who  ate  less  than 
the  Babe  was  excessively  unwell  shortly 
afterwards. 

"  But  for  that,"  said  the  Babe,  drinking 
Chartreuse  out  of  a  tea-cup,  "  I  blame 
the  lobster." 


90  The  Babe,  B.A. 

The  moon,  as  big  as  a  bandbox,  was 
just  rising  clear  of  the  trees,  and  the  Babe 
produced  cigars. 

"  For  mine,"  he  said,  "is  one  of  those 
rare,  generous  natures  that  does  unto 
others  what  it  would  not  do  unto  itself. 
It  all  comes  in  the  catechism.  I  will 
thank  any  one  for  a  simple  paper  cigar- 
ette." 

"  Speech,"  said  Ealing.     "  As  Stewart." 

The  Babe  bowed,  and  began,  drawling 
out  his  words  in  a  low,  slow,  musical  voice. 

"  Mr.  Sykes  and  gentlemen,"  he  said, 
"  the  May  week  is  upon  us,  and  we,  like 
the  Cambridge  Review ',  are  at  the  end 
of  another  year  of  University  life  and 
thought.  Some  of  us — most  of  us  in  fact, 
have  experienced  for  two  years  the  widen- 
ing influence  and  varied  duties  which  are 
inseparable  from  the  minds  of  any  of 
those  who  embark  upon  the  harvest  of 
University  curriculum  with  any  earnest- 
ness of  purpose,  or  seriousness  of  aim.  I 
think,  in  fact,  I  am  right  in  believing  that 
my  friend  Mr.  Reginald  Bristow  alone — 
to  continue  a  few  of  my  less  mixed  meta- 


The  Babe's  Picnic.  91 

phors — has  put  out  only  a  year's  space 
upon  the  sea  of  those  special  features, 
which  mark  the  career  and  are  the  hinge 
of  the  prospects  of  those  miners  after  per- 
fectly useless  knowledge  who  seek  to  in- 
rease  their  general  ignorance  among  the 
purlieus  of  Alma  Mater.  Some  of  us  have 
failed  in  attaining  the  objects  of  our  vari- 
ous ambitions,  and  I  am  happy  to  say  that 
none  of  us  have  really  tried  to  do  so.  We 
have  none  of  us  gone  to  the  devil,  and  he 
with  characteristic  exclusiveness  has  kept 
aloof  from  us  all.  [Cheers]  We  none  of  us 
play  cricket  for  the  University,  though  I 
once  knew  a  man  who  got  his  extra  square 
at  chess ;  he  was  a  dear  boy,  but  he  is 
dead  now,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest 
fear  that  anything  will  prevent  us  from 
being  unable  to  fail  in  obtaining  a  very 
respectable  place  in  our  Triposes.  Yes, 
the  May  week,  which  occurs  in  June  and 
lasts  a  fortnight,  spoken  of,  I  may  say 
sung  of  in  the  pages  of  the  Junior  Dean 
and  The  Fellow  of  Trinity,  is  upon  us. 
Personally  I  detest  the  May  week  and  I 
am  subscribing  to  the  Grace  testimonial 


92  The  Babe,  B.A. 

fund  simply  and  solely  because  I  abhor  the 
boat  procession,  but  before  long  our  stately 
chapels  and  storied  urns  [cheers]  will  echo 
to  the  sound  of  girlish  laughter  and  ma- 
ternal feet.  Gentlemen,  I  thank  you  from 
the  bottom  of  my  heart  for  the  very  sin- 
cere way  in  which  this  toast  has  been 
received,  and  am  happy  to  declare  that 
the  Institution  is  now  open,  and  the  meet- 
ing adjourned  sine  die." 

•  ••••• 

Going  home,  the  Babe  had  to  stand  in 
the  bows  to  look  out  for  snags  and  shoals. 
He  carried  a  lantern  in  his  hand  by  the 
light  of  which  he  scrutinised  with  agonised 
intentness  the  dark  surface  of  the  water. 
Just  above  Byron's  Pool  the  boat  ran  into 
a  sunken  tree  trunk  and  the  Babe  and  his 
lantern  plunged  heavily  into  the  water. 
So  he  dressed  himself  in  the  tablecloth, 
and  his  appearance  was  inimitable.  He 
did  not  stop  in  Cambridge  for  the  May 
week. 


VII.— THE  BABE'S  "SAPPING." 


Lo,  when  an  oyster,  succulent  and  tender. 
Leagued  with  lemon,  courted  by  cayenne, 

Makes  its  inevitable  sweet  surrender, 

Delicately  dies,  it  knows  not  why  or  when, — 

"  Could  aught  atone  ?  "  pathetically  asked  he, 

He  whom  ye  wot,  to  find  that  unaware 
Oysters  would  be  indubitably  nasty, 

Natives  or  not,  because  July  is  here  ? 

ST.  SWITHIN. 


THE  Babe  spent  June  and  the  first  half 
of  July  in  London.  He  painted  his  bicy- 
cle white  with  Mr.  Aspinall's  best  enamel, 
and  presented  a  very  elegant  appearance 
on  it  every  morning  in  Battersea  Park. 
The  elections  were  on,  and  his  father,  who 
represented  the  Conservative  interests  of 
a  manufacturing  town  in  the  North  of 
England,  was  absent  from  London,  in  the 
hopes  of  representing  them  again.  But 
party  questions  did  not  interest  his  son, 
and  the  Babe,  reflecting  that  whether  the 
Liberals  or  Conservatives  governed  the 
country,  Battersea  Park  would  still  be 
open  to  him  and  his  bicycle,  pursued  his 

93 


94  The  Babe,  B.A. 

calm  course  on  a  moderately  evenly-bal- 
anced wheel. 

So  the  Babe  had  a  commodious  house 
in  Prince's  Gate  at  his  disposal.  For  he 
was  the  only  child,  and  his  mother,  who 
was  a  keener  politician  even  than  his 
father,  accompanied  the  latter  on  his  po- 
litical errands.  It  occurred  to  him  that 
he  might  turn  an  honest  penny  by  letting 
the  whole  of  the  first  floor  for  a  week  or 
two  after  the  manner  of  Mr.  Somerset, 
when  he  found  himself  in  possession  of 
the  Superfluous  Mansion,  but  after  some 
consideration,  he  dismissed  this  as  an  un- 
worthy and  inconvenient  economy,  and 
telegraphed  to  Reggie  to  leave  Cambridge 
and  the  May  week  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves and  join  him.  Reggie  had  kept 
his  term,  so  he  obeyed,  taking  with  him 
several  classical  books,  for  the  Babe,  so 
he  said  in  his  telegram,  meant  to  "  sap." 

The  Babe's  "  sapping  "  was  conducted 
on  highly  original  principles.  He  got  up 
at  eight,  "  in  order,"  he  said,  "  to  get  a 
long  morning,"  had  a  cup  of  tea,  and  then 
took  his  bicycle  with  him  in  his  mother's 


"Sapping."  95 

victoria  to  Battersea  Park,  where  he  rode 
till  ten,  and  then  had  breakfast.  He  got 
back  to  Prince's  Gate  about  eleven  in  the 
victoria  which  waited  for  him  at  the  Park, 
had  a  bath  and  dressed,  and  usually  went 
off  to  Lord's  where  he  watched  cricket 
till  lunch  time  from  the  top  of  the  pavil- 
ion, and  if  the  match  was  interesting 
stopped  on  till  about  five.  He  then  went 
to  the  Bath  Club  where  he  bathed  and 
had  tea,  returning  home  in  time  to  dress 
for  dinner,  which  he  usually  took  at  a 
friend's  house.  The  evening  was  spent 
at  a  theatre  or  a  music  hall,  and  he 
finished  up  if  possible  at  a  dance.  If 
he  had  no  dance  to  go  to,  he  read  the 
evening  paper  at  a  club,  and  went  to 
bed 

"In  fact,"  as  he  explained  to  Reggie, 
who  arrived  one  evening  about  seven, 
"we  shall  lead  a  simple  and  strenuous 
life  even  in  the  midst  of  this  modern 
Babylon.  The  bicycle  and  the  Bath  Club 
will  minister  to  the  needs  of  the  body, 
and  our  minds  will  minister  to  each  other. 
We  take  our  dinner  to-night  at  home,  and 


96  The  Babe,  B.A. 

after  dinner  it  would  be  rash  not  to  see 
Miss  Cecilia  Loftus.  She  can  dance  like 
fun.  I  hope  you  have  brought  some 
books,  for  otherwise  you  will  have  noth- 
ing to  do  when  I  am  working.  It's  time 
to  dress.  I  see  my  father  made  four 
speeches  yesterday.  His  energy  is  per- 
fectly amazing.  We  will  send  for  the 
evening  paper,  for  there  are  things  of 
overwhelming  interest  in  it,  I  am  told, 
apart  from  politics." 

The  programme  at  the  "  Pavilion " 
waned  in  interest  after  the  performance 
of  Miss  Cecilia  Loftus,  and  about  eleven 
the  Babe  proposed  an  adjournment.  It 
was  a  warm  clear  night,  and  they  started 
back,  walking  along  Piccadilly  instead  of 
taking  a  hansom.  The  streets  were  full, 
and  characteristically  "  London,"  in  other 
words  they  were  crowded  with  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men  and  women,  who 
eyed  one  another  with  suspicious  reserve. 
In  Paris  the  birds  of  night  look  at  each 
other  with  friendly  interest,  in  London 
with  mistrust  and  enmity. 

The  Babe  was  in  an  expansive  mood, 


"  Sapping."  97 

and  like  Byron,  he  bitterly  lamented  his 
own  loneliness  in  the  crowd. 

"  Here  am  I,"  he  said,  "  a  young  man 
of  pleasing  manner,  and  amiable  disposi- 
tion, and  I  feel  like  a  solitary  wayfarer  in 
the  desert  of  Sahara.  When  the  four 
men  in  the  New  Arabian  Nights  left 
Prince  Florizel's  smoking  divan,  and 
plunged  into  the  roaring  streets,  they 
were  engulfed  by  strange  adventures  be- 
fore they  had  gone  a  hundred  yards. 
The  Lady  of  the  Superfluous  Mansion 
annexed  one,  the  Fair  Cuban  another, 
the  man  with  the  chin  beard  a  third. 
What  could  be  more  delightful  ?  And 
yet  I  might  walk  the  streets  till  the  crack 
of  doom,  and  the  archangels  would  have 
to  send  me  home  at  the  last,  still  adven- 
tureless." 

"Poor  Babe,"  said  Reggie,  "but  per- 
haps every  one  else  is  in  the  same  plight ; 
perhaps  they  are  all  longing  for  you  to 
speak  to  them." 

"  I  don't  think  so,"  said  the  Babe,  "  they 
seem  to  me  supremely  indifferent  as  to 
whether  I  speak  to  them  or  not.  What 


98  The  Babe,  B.A. 

are  we  to  do,  Reggie  ?  The  night  is 
yet  young,  but  we  are  growing  old.  I 
think  a  little  supper,  four  or  five  dozen 
native  lobsters,  as  Mrs.  Nickleby  sug- 
gested, would  not  hurt  us.  I  hear  that 
there  is  a  most  commodious  restaurant  at 
the  Savoy  Hotel.  It  would  be  well  to  be 
certain  on  that  point.  We  are  walking 
in  the  wrong  direction  but  we  will  do  so 
no  longer.  Let  us  take  a  hansom.  Noth- 
ing will  happen  to  us.  But  we  will  give 
this  wicked  world  one  more  chance.  We 
will  walk  back  across  Leicester  Square. 
It  is  supposed  to  be  the  fountain-head  of 
all  adventures,  and  the  home  of  all  adven- 
turers. We  will  loiter  there  a  few  mo- 
ments." 

"  What  sort  of  adventures  do  you  want, 
Babe  ?  "  asked  Reggie. 

"  Why  that 's  exactly  what  I  couldn't 
tell  you,"  said  the  Babe,  "the  point  of  an 
adventure  is  that  it  is  absolutely  unex- 
pected. If  I  could  tell  you  what  I  wanted, 
it  would  cease  to  be  unexpected,  and 
therefore  cease  to  be  an  adventure.  If 
you  know  what  you  are  going  to  do,  it  is 


"  Sapping."  99 

no  adventure.  But  it 's  no  use :  unex- 
pected things  never  happen.  We  will 
take  a  cab  and  eat  oysters.  Perhaps  the 
oysters  will  be  stale,  and  if  so,  it  will  be  a 
kind  of  adventure,  for  they  are  invariably 
fresh  at  the  Savoy." 

The  Babe  selected  a  table  in  the  bal- 
cony opening  out  of  the  restaurant ;  below 
they  could  see  the  long  gaslit  line  of  em- 
bankment curving  gently  towards  West- 
minster, and  the  river  flowing  turbidly 
out  with  the  ebbing  tide.  In  the  middle 
distance  the  bridge  of  Charing  Cross  with 
one  great  electric  lamp  high  in  the  air, 
crossed  to  the  Surrey  side,  and  every  now 
and  then  a  train  shrieked  across  under 
the  glass  arch  of  the  station.  In  the 
street  below  there  jingled  by,  from  time 
to  time,  a  hansom,  noiseless  except  for 
the  bell,  and  the  sharp-cut  ring  of  the 
horse's  hoofs.  A  party  of  shrill-voiced 
Americans  took  a  table  near  them,  and 
discussed  the  relative  merits  of  English 
and  American  cars,  with  passionate  parti- 
sanship. There  were  of  course  no  oysters 
to  be  had,  as  it  was  June,  and  native 


TOO  The  Babe,  B.A. 

devilled  kidneys  had  to  take  their  place. 
Tired-looking  waiters  flitted  noiselessly 
about,  and  the  Babe's  face  caught  from 
the  kidneys  a  livelier  animation. 

"To-morrow,"  he  said,  "we  will  go 
even  unto  the  Oval,  and  watch  the  gentle- 
men and  players.  It  is  strange  that  to 
play  cricket  is  the  most  doleful  of  human 
pursuits,  and  to  watch  it  one  of  the  most 
delightful.  When  I  grow  up  I  shall  keep 
twenty-two  men  who  shall  play  cricket 
before  me,  as  Salome  danced  before 
Herod.  They  shall  play  a  perpetual  match, 
which  shall  never  come  to  a  world  without 
end.  Amen.  Have  some  more  kidneys, 
Reggie?  A  few  of  our  small  kidneys 
would  not  hurt  you.  Waiter,  bring  some 
more  kidneys.  Kidneys  are  not  attractive 
to  the  eye,  but  the  proof  of  them  is  in  the 
eating.  I  eat  them  because  they  are  so 
comfortable,  as  the  Psalmist  says.  By 
the  way,  has  Sir  John  Lubbock  put  the 
eating  of  kidneys  among  his  Pleasures  of 
Life?  I  shall  write  a  book  called  The 
Sorrows  of  Death  as  a  companion  vol- 
ume." 


''Sapping."  TO  i 

"  Do  ;  and  have  it  set  to  music  by  Men- 
delssohn." 

"  Mendelssohn  is  dead,  and  the  kidneys 
are  dead,"  said  the  profane  Babe.  "  Hullo 
there's  Stewart.  He  looks  like  a  man  out 
of  the  Yellow  Book  by  Aubrey  Beardsley. 
I  wish  I  could  look  as  if  Aubrey  Beardsley 
had  drawn  me  ;  shall  I  ask  him  to  supper, 
Reggie  ?  I  wonder  what  he  's  doing  at 
the  Savoy  ?  " 

But  Mr.  Stewart  had  got  a  Cabinet 
Minister  in  hand  just  for  the  present,  and 
it  was  half  an  hour  or  so  before  he  joined 
them  ;  even  then  it  took  him  ten  minutes 
to  get  through  the  amiability  of  Cabinet 
Ministers,  before  descending  to  more  sub- 
lunary topics.  But  when  he  descended, 
as  the  Babe  said  afterwards,  he  came  down 
with  a  run,  and  talked  about  music-halls 
and  other  things. 

He  was  most  sympathetic  with  the 
Babe's  misfortune  in  being  unable  to  stop 
up  for  May  week,  and  inveighed  against 
the  government  and  management  of  the 
University  generally. 

"  It  is  incredible  to  me,"  he  said,  "per- 


102  The  Babe,  B.A. 

fectly  incredible  that  so  much  pedantry 
and  narrowness  can  be  compressed  into  so 
small  a  place.  There  is  not  a  single  one 
of  my  colleagues  whom  I  could  call  a  man 
of  the  world.  I  was  saying  just  now  to 
my  dear  friend  Abbotsbury  who  has  been 
very  strongly  urging  me  to  stand  for  Cam- 
bridge in  Parliament,  that  I  am  really 
quite  unfit,  perfectly  unfit  to  represent  the 
University.  I  know  nothing  whatever 
about  my  colleagues,  and  I  disapprove  of 
all  I  know  of  them.  Take  your  own  case. 
You  are  of  years  of  discretion,  my  dear 
Babe,  and  if  you  choose  to  dress  in  a  table- 
cloth, no  one  has  any  right  to  prevent  you. 
They  would  n't  have  any  right  to  stop  you 
if  you  chose  to  dress  in  two — less  right  in 
fact.  I  'm  sure  you  looked  charming  in  a 
tablecloth.  Why  should  the  Dean  of 
your  college  exercise  jurisdiction  over 
your  dress  ?  He  is  no  Prince  Regent. 
For  he  dresses  himself  in  a  cake  hat  and 
a  tail  coat,  which  is  perhaps  the  least  be- 
coming style  of  dress  which  can  be  con- 
ceived. Yet  he  is  n't  sent  down  for  it. 
Why  should  he  be  allowed  to  make  the 


"Sapping."  103 

Great  Court  of  Trinity  hideous,  and  you 
be  sent  down  for — for  making  it  beau- 
tiful ?  " 

"  The  Babe  did  a  skirt  dance  down 
Malcolm  Street,"  remarked  Reggie,  "  and 
it  was  a  windy  night." 

"Well,  the  Babe  is  n't  to  blame  if  it  is 
a  windy  night,"  said  Mr.  Stewart.  "  They 
had  probably  been  praying  for  wind  in 
St.  Mary's,  though  the  only  time  in  my 
life  that  I  attended  a  University  sermon 
there  was  plenty  of  wind.  The  sermon 
was  preached  by  a  black  missionary,  who 
I  think  said  he  came  from  Iceland,  which 
I  don't  believe.  He  literally  swept  us 
away  in  a  hurricane  of  inconsequent  ap- 
peal. Really  to  assume  that  the  Babe  is 
responsible  for  the  wind,  is  almost  pro- 
fanity. What  a  delicious  night !  It  quite 
makes  me  think  of  the  feasts  of  Tiberius 
at  Capri.  The  air  is  as  soft  as  the  air  of 
Naples  and  all  the  waiters  here,  as  at 
Capri,  are  made  in  Germany.  Germany 
itself,  I  believe,  is  getting  gradually  de- 
populated, and  I  'm  sure  I  don't  wonder. 
Yes,  I  am  staying  here  for  a  day  or  two. 


io4  The  Babe,  B.A. 

There  is  an  expensive  simplicity  about  the 
Savoy,  which  almost  lets  me  forget  for 
the  time  the  pompous  cheapness  both 
literal  and  literary  of  University  towns. 
Oxford  is  no  better.  Dons  think  about 
croquet  and  Triposes  at  Cambridge,  and 
about  Moderations  and  lawn  tennis  at 
Oxford.  It  is  six  of  one  and  five  and  a 
half  of  the  other.  And  the  cuisine  of 
the  college  kitchens  is  enough  to  make 
Savarin  turn  in  his  grave.  You  order 
melted  butter,  and  they  bring  forth  milk 
in  a  crockery  dish." 

"  I  thought  you  were  devoted  to  Cam- 
bridge," said  Reggie.  "  I  'm  sure  I  've 
heard  you  say  so." 

"  Dear  Reggie,  let  me  ask  you  never  to 
remember  anything  I  say.  But  it  is  true 
that  I  am  devoted  to  what  I  consider  to 
be  the  raison  d'etre  of  Cambridge,  that 
is  the  undergraduates,  with  their  fresh 
bright  lives,  and  their  insouciance,  their 
costumes  of  tablecloths  and  their  frank 
contempt  for  the  class  to  which  I  have 
the  misfortune  to  belong.  That  is  why  I 
always  go  up  in  the  Long,  dons  for  the 


"  Sapping."  105 

time  are  in  eclipse  :  it  is  like  a  whole 
holiday.  I  am  going  there  next  week,  to 
stop  for  a  month  or  so.  I  hope  you  are 
both  coming." 

"Yes,"  said  the  Babe,  "we  are  both 
going  up  to  work.  I  am  to  go  in  for  a 
tripos  in  history  instead  of  a  pass.  I  had 
a  short  and  painful  interview  with  my 
father  about  it.  Why  are  fathers  so  curt  ? 
Do  you  suppose  I  shall  get  through  ?  " 

"  A  tripos,"  remarked  Mr.  Stewart,  "  is 
a  form  of  self-mutilation.  To  go  in  for  a 
tripos,  if  you  are  not  by  nature  tripical, 
if  I  may  coin  a  word,  and  I  may  tell  you 
that  it  is  to  your  credit  that  you  are  not, 
my  dear  Babe,  implies  a  sacrifice  of  other 
branches  of  your  nature.  Why  cannot 
fathers  be  content  to  let  their  sons  be, 
and  not  do  ?  No  one  yet  has  ever  been 
able  to  tell  me  of  any  good  thing  that 
comes  out  of  triposes,  except  that  it 
keeps  the  Examiners  to  their  rooms  for 
three  weeks  afterwards.  But  they  come 
out  like  pigmies  refreshed  with  small  beer, 
and  talk  about  quadratic  calculus  and  de- 
liberative genitives  with  redoubled  vigour. 


io6  The  Babe,  B.A. 

The  test  which  triposes  apply  discovers 
whether  the  candidates  are  possessed  of 
a  little  knowledge,  and  so  are  dangerous 
things.  If  they  helped  them  to  realise 
the  beauty  of  ancient  Athens,  or  the  pic- 
turesqueness  of  the  French  Revolution,  it 
would  be  a  different  matter  and  I,  as  I 
understood  Longridge  to  do  the  other 
day  at  a  College  meeting,  should  advocate 
having  a  tripos  once  a  week  and  twice  on 
Sundays.  But  all  they  do  is  to  instil  into 
the  minds  of  the  undergraduates  a  con- 
fused and  it  may  be  an  incorrect  idea, 
that  all  Athenians  were  as  great  a  bore  as 
Thucydides  and  spoke  as  bad  Greek,  and 
that  there  is  a  grave  doubt  whether,  after 
all,  Marie  Antoinette  died  by  the  guillo- 
tine, and  was  not  carried  off  by  an  attack 
of  acute  old  age  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
seven.  Even  if  it  was  so,  and  it  is  far 
from  certain,  why  tell  any  one  about  it  ? 
History  rightly  considered  is  a  great  and 
wonderful  romance,  and  the  methods  em- 
ployed at  places  of  education  is  to  render 
sterile  all  the  germs  of  romance  it  con- 
tains, and  condense  the  residue  of  facts 


"  Sapping."  107 

into  the  smallest  possible  compass,  and 
Mr.  Stanley  Weyman  then  proceeds  to 
write  reliable  blue  books  about  them, 
which  his  publisher  libellously  advertises 
as  "  New  Novels,"  though  they  are  neither 
new  nor  novel.  One  of  my  colleagues 
just  before  the  tripos,  circulated  among 
his  pupils  a  half-sheet  of  paper,  not  very 
closely  printed.  But  that  infernal  half- 
sheet  contained  all  the  procedure  of  the 
Athenian  law  courts,  and  if  learned  by 
heart,  quite  unintelligently,  as  he  recom- 
mended, would  insure  full  marks  on  any 
question  that  might  be  set  on  the  subject. 
I  had  the  misfortune  to  be  with  him  when 
one  of  his  pupils  returned  from  the  exam- 
ination, and  he  literally  danced  for  joy  all 
over  the  Combination  Room,  though  he 
is  a  stout  man,  when  he  saw  that  three 
questions  out  of  nine  could  be  completely 
answered  from  his  repulsive  little  half- 
sheet.  And  the  tripos  in  the  face  of 
these  revolting  details,  is  called  a  test  of 
a  man's  ability,  and  goes  a  long  way  to 
win  him  a  Fellowship.  You,  my  dear 
Babe,  are  a  man  of  far  more  liberal  edu- 


io8  The  Babe,  B.A. 

cation  than  that  lamentable  colleague  of 
mine,  though,  I  may  say,  in  answer  to 
your  question,  that  I  would  only  take 
very  long  odds  if  I  had  to  bet  on  your 
chance  of  getting  through." 

"  I  got  through  my  last  May's,"  re- 
marked the  Babe  in  self-defence. 

"Yes,  but  without  incriminating  my- 
self, my  dear  boy,  I  must  remind  you  that 
I  looked  over  at  least  three  of  your  pa- 
pers, and  the  marks  I  gave  you  were 
more  for  your  capability  of  acquiring  ro- 
mantic and  delightful  knowledge,  and  for 
a  certain  power  of  giving  plausible  and 
voluminous  answers  to  questions  of  which 
it  was  obvious  you  knew  nothing  what- 
ever, than  the  actual  knowledge  your  pa- 
pers displayed.  However  if  you  come 
down  to  little  half-sheets  of  useless  and 
absurd  facts,  no  doubt  you  will  be  able  to 
get  through,  and  it  'is  upon  that,  that  I 
would  take  only  very  long  odds.  From 
what  I  know  of  you,  I  do  not  think  you 
will  come  down  to  that.  I  am  delighted 
to  hear  you  are  coming  up  in  the  Long, 
and  we  will  read  some  charming  French 


"Sapping."  109 

memoirs  together.  They  are  much  more 
amusing,  and  much  more  picturesque  than 
Zola's  tedious  pictures  of  the  Second  Em- 
pire. Reggie,  you  are  classical,  are  you 
not  ?  Read,  mark,  and  learn  the  Phcedrus, 
and  the  Symposium.  The  former  you 
should  read  on  the  upper  river  under  a 
plane  tree  if  possible,  the  latter  after 
dining  wisely  and  well  in  your  rooms,  and 
you  will  know  more  of  the  essential  Greek 
than  all  Mackintyre's  horrid  little  half- 
sheets  could  ever  teach  you." 

"  Then  do  you  think  the  tripos  is  per- 
fectly useless  and  valueless  ?  "  asked  the 
Babe. 

"  Absolutely  so  :  and  what  makes  it 
more  ridiculous  is  that  it  is  not  even  orna- 
mental. Most  useless  things  have  some 
beauty  or  charm  about  them.  The  tripos 
alone,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  none.  I  have 
only  done  one  thing  in  my  life  of  which  I 
am  thoroughly  ashamed,  and  that  is  that 
I  took  a  first  in  my  tripos.  Mackintyre 
of  course  did  the  same.  It  is  the  thing  in 
his  life — he  was  Senior  Classic  I  think— 
of  which  he  is  most  proud.  However,  to 


no  The  Babe,  B.A. 

do  him  justice,  I  believe  that  of  late  years 
what  is  called  the  Philatelic  Society  has 
usurped  most  of  his  leisure  time.  No,  it 
has  nothing  to  do  with  telepathy ;  it 
means  loving  things  that  are  a  long  way 
off  and  is  specialised  to  apply  to  collec- 
tions of  postage  stamps.  To  me  the  word 
denotes  '  Distance  lends  enchantment  to 
the  view.' " 

The  Babe  was  continuing  to  eat  straw- 
berries with  a  pensive  air  while  Mr.  Stew- 
art spoke,  and  having  finished  the  dish  he 
looked  round  plaintively,  and  Reggie 
caught  his  eye. 

"  You  must  n't  eat  any  more,  Babe,"  he 
said,  "  it 's  after  twelve,  and  we  're  going 
out  at  eight  to-morrow,  and  we  have  to 
get  back  to  Prince's  Gate." 

The  Babe  sighed. 

"  Mr.  Sykes  will  be  waiting  up  for  us," 
he  said  ;  "  I  suppose  we  ought  to  go.  He 
will  lose  his  beauty-sleep." 


VIII. — A  GAME  OF  CROQUET. 

Oswald.     Speak  to  me  of  this  game  croquet. 
Odo.     It  is  the  game  of  King's. — OLD  PLAY. 

So  the  Babe  took  Reggie's  queen,  which 
for  the  last  eight  moves  had  led  a  dog's 
life,  and  Reggie  lost  his  temper  and  up- 
set the  board  intentionally.  Mr.  Sykes 
who  was  lying  on  the  hearth-rug,  pretended 
that  the  black  king  was  a  rat,  though  of 
course  he  knew  it  was  not,  and  proceeded 
to  worry  it. 

In  other  words  it  was  just  after  lunch 
on  Monday  the  7th  of  August.  They 
had  lunched  in  Hall,  and  a  Fellow  of  the 
college,  who  rejoiced  in  the  name  of  Ging- 
ham had  asked  them  to  play  croquet  after- 
wards in  the  King's  garden  at  half-past 
two.  There  was  no  cricket  going  on,  and 
it  was  too  hot  to  play  tennis,  so  they  very 
kindly  consented. 

The  black  king  was  rescued,  and  the 
Babe  tucked  Mr.  Sykes  under  his  arm  and 
shut  him  into  Reggie's  gyp  closet,  as  the 
sight  of  a  croquet  ball  always  inspired  him 
with  a  wild,  chattering  rage,  and  they 


ii2  The  Babe,  B.A. 

strolled  out  onto  the  bridge  to  wait  for 
Gingham,  who  appeared  before  long  ac- 
companied by  a  colleague  from  another 
college,  of  mean  appearance,  who  proved 
also  to  be  of  uncertain  temper. 

The  limes  down  to  the  back  gate  were 
in  full  flower  and  resonant  with  bees,  and 
Mr.  Gingham  made  a  very  felicitous  quo- 
tation from  the  fourth  Georgic  with  gay 
facility.  Beyond,  the  road  along  the  Backs 
lay  cool  and  white  beneath  the  enormous 
elms,  and  the  Babe  asserted  that  he  heard 
a  nightingale,  which  Mr.  Gingham's  friend 
said  was  quite  impossible,  since  it  was  the 
end  of  the  first  week  in  August.  But  the 
Babe  remarked  with  a  fatuous  smile,  that 
he  had  been  Senior  Ornithologist,  and 
might  be  supposed  to  know.  Upon  which 
Mr.  Gingham's  friend  said  there  was  no 
such  thing  as  an  Ornithological  tripos,  and 
the  Babe  replied  :  "  That 's  a  Loring,"  and 
refused  to  explain  further. 

Behind  the  railings  the  garden  lay 
deliciously  fresh  and  green.  Long,  level 
plains  of  grass  were  spread  about  between 
the  flower-beds,  and  the  whole  place  had 


Croquet.  1 1 3 

an  air  of  academic  and  cultivated  repose. 
On  one  of  these  stretches  of  lawn  a  game 
of  tennis  was  in  progress  ;  the  performance 
was  not  of  a  very  high  class,  but  the  play- 
ers seemed  to  be  enjoying  themselves. 

Each  game  opened  with  a  regularity 
which  to  the  ordinary  mind  would  appear 
monotonous  in  incessant  repetition.  The 
first  service  delivered  by  all  the  players 
was  a  swift,  splendid  fault  served  low  into 
the  net,  and  this  was  invariably  followed 
by  a  slow  underhand  service,  always 
perfectly  faultless,  but  probably  easy  of 
execution.  Then,  however,  a  pleasing 
diversity  varied  the  progress  of  the  rest. 
About  sixty  per  cent,  of  these  services 
were  returned,  in  which  case  the  partner  of 
the  server,  who  stood  close  up  to  the  net, 
hit  them  cruelly  out  of  court  and  called 
the  score  in  an  angry,  rasping  voice,  as  if 
it  had  been  contradicted.  The  other  forty 
per  cent,  came  to  an  untimely  end  in  the 
meshes  of  the  net.  But  the  interest  of 
the  game  to  the  Babe,  who  lagged  behind 
to  watch  it  for  a  few  minutes,  was,  that 
whereas  most  people  who  play  lawn-tennis 

"3 


ii4  The  Babe,  B.A. 

indifferently  are  exactly  like  everybody 
else,  these  four  players  seemed  to  him  to 
be  like  nobody  else.  One  of  them  was 
so  glaringly  obscure  that  you  would 
scarcely  have  known  he  was  there,  if  you 
had  not  seen  him  returning  the  balls  ;  the 
second  was  more  neglected  by  nature  than 
one  would  have  thought  a  living  man 
could  be,  and  had  the  sleeves  of  his  shirt 
buttoned  round  his  wrists  ;  the  third  had  a 
face  which  resembled  only  the  face  of  an 
emaciated  man  seen  in  the  bowl  of  a 
spoon,  and  the  features  of  the  fourth 
were  obscured  by  a  hat  which  resembled 
a  beehive  in  shape,  and  a  frieze  coat  in 
texture,  but  on  the  doctrine  of  probabili- 
ties, it  seemed  likely  that,  did  we  know  all, 
he  would  have  proved  to  be  as  remarka- 
ble as  his 'fellow  sportsmen.  He  whisked 
about  with  astonishing  rapidity,  though  he 
was  hardly  ever  in  his  right  place,  and  a 
handkerchief  which  dangled  out  of  his 
trousers  pocket  reminded  the  observer  of 
a  white,  badly-trimmed  tail. 

The    Babe's    curiosity    to    see  his  face 
grew  unbearable,  but,  like  the   Quangle- 


Croquet.  1 1 5 

Wangle,  his  face  was  not  to  be  seen. 
Once  the  Babe  thought  he  caught  sight 
of  a  small,  round,  open  mouth,  but  he 
could  not  be  sure. 

The  name  of  Mr.  Gingham's  colleague 
was  Jones,  and  he  and  Gingham  played 
the  Babe  and  Reggie.  Jones  began,  but 
failed  at  the  second  hoop,  and  the  Babe 
having  passed  it,  croquetted  him  cheer- 
fully away  into  a  fine  big  bush  about  one 
hundred  yards  distant.  He  said  to  Jones, 
in  his  genial  way  :  "  An  enemy  hath  done 
this,"  but  got  no  reply.  He  then  tried  to 
get  into  position  for  the  third  hoop,  and 
it  is  doubtful  whether  in  all  the  annals  of 
croquet,  there  was  ever  made  so  vilely 
futile  a  stroke.  Gingham  followed,  and  as 
it  was  hopeless  to  mobilise  with  a  ball  a 
hundred  yards  off,  took  a  shot  at  the 
Babe's  ball,  got  through  the  third  hoop, 
and  secured  position  for  the  cage.  Reggie 
mobilised  with  the  Babe,  and  then  there 
was  a  pause,  broken  by  a  confused  but 
angry  murmur  from  inside  a  beautiful  lau- 
restinus  now  in  full  flower.  It  is  almost 
needless  to  explain  -that  Jones  could  not 


n6  The  Babe,  B.A. 

find  his  ball.  When  he  did  discover  it,  he 
took  it  out  and  made  an  extraordinarily 
good  attempt  to  get  into  position  for  the 
second  hoop,  but  just  hit  the  wire,  and  lay 
in  a  bee-line  with  the  opening.  He  lit  a 
cigarette  and  tried  to  kick  the  match  with 
which  he  had  lit  it. 

Then  it  was  that  Satan  entered  into 
the  Babe's  soul,  and  from  this  point  an 
analysis  of  Jones's  strokes  is  worth  re- 
cording. 

(I.)  Secured  position  for  the  second 
hoop. 

(II.)  Tried  to  regain  position  for  the 
second  hoop. 

(III.)  Wired  for  the  second  hoop. 

(IV.)  A  curious  stroke  in  which  the 
cage  was  torn  up  and  twisted  as  if  by 
some  convulsion  of  Nature,  and  had  to 
be  replaced  in  position  and  straightened. 

(V.)  Hit  the  Babe's  ball,  but  played 
out  of  turn.  Ball  replaced,  and  stroke 
played  again.  No  result,  but  left  near 
the  further  stump. 

(VI.)  Failed  to  secure  position  for  the 
seccrnd  hoop. 


Croquet.  1 1 7 

(VII.)  Secured  position  for  the  second 
hoop. 

(VIII.)  A  cross-country  hit  from  below 
the  willow-tree  into  the  same  beautiful 
laurestinus; 

(IX.)  Captured  the  Babe's  ball,  and 
sent  it  to  the  feet  of  the  man  with  the 
beehive  hat. 

(X.)     |  Returned  by  stages  to  the  sec- 

(XI.)   f      ond  hoop. 

(XII.)  Sent  the  Babe  through  the  cage 
by  accident. 

(XIII.)  Secured  position  for  the  second 
hoop. 

At  this  point  Mr.  Jones  gave  vent  to  a 
most  regrettable  remark  about  the  Babe, 
and  his  nose  swelled  a  little.  Such  a  re- 
sult was  excusable,  for  the  Babe's  dia- 
bolical ingenuity  in  attacking  him  had 
only  been  equalled  by  his  diabolical  luck. 
Twice, — for  the  ground  was  not  well- 
rolled — had  his  ball  come  skipping  and 
hopping  along,  and  had  pounced  upon 
his  adversary's  like  a  playful  kitten,  and 
twice  he  had  cannoned  violently  off  a 
hoop  onto  it.  But  about  this  point  his 


nS  The  Babe,  B.A. 

luck  had  shown  signs  of  failing,  and  he 
sheltered  himself  for  a  few  strokes  near 
his  partner,  who  together  with  Ging- 
ham had  been  plodding  slowly  and  stead- 
ily round  the  hoops.  Altogether  the 
game  had  been  like  "  Air  with  Variations," 
the  Babe  and  Mr.  Jones  taking  brilliant 
firework  excursions  across  the  theme.  But 
for  a  little  while  it  seemed  as  if  the  cup 
of  the  Babe's  iniquities  was  full,  and  for 
ten  minutes  he  kept  falling  into  the  hand 
of  his  adversaries  with  the  most  sur- 
prising persistence.  But  the  end  was 
not  yet. 

Half  an  hour  later  the  position  was  as 
follows  : 

Reggie  and  Gingham  were  rovers,  the 
Babe  had  not  been  through  the  cage  com- 
ing back,  but  Jones  had  only  the  two  last 
hoops  to  pass,  and  it  was  Jones's  turn. 
The  Babe  was  getting  a  little  excited,  and 
the  lust  for  vengeance  was  on  Jones..  He 
had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  advise  the 
Babe  what  to  do  on  one  occasion,  and  the 
Babe  had  answered  him  shortly  in  a  high, 
tremulous  voice. 


Croquet.  119 

The  Babe's  ball  was  in  position  for  the 
cage,  and  theoretically  Jones  was  wired 
to  him.  But  his  ball,  violently  and  mali- 
ciously struck,  curled  in  a  complicated 
manner  off  the  cage  wires  and  hit  the 
Babe's. 

"  That 's  a  beastly  fluke,"  said  that  gen- 
tleman in  an  excited  contralto. 

Jones  could  afford  to  be  generous. 

"  It  did  turn  it  off  a  little,"  he  said  pa- 
cifically, "  but  I  think  it  would  have  hit  it 
anyhow." 

"  Then  you  think  wrong,"  said  the  Babe 
outwardly  calm. 

The  laurestinus  quivered. 

Jones  became  a  rover,  and  mobilised 
with  his  partner,  but  not  very  close. 

The  Babe  failed  to  mobilise  with 
Reggie. 

Gingham  shot  at  his  partner  and 
missed. 

Reggie  mobilised  successfully  with  the 
Babe. 

Quern  deus  milt  perdere,  prius  demen- 
tat.  Jones  ought  to  have  separated  them 
but  having  hit  his  partner,  he  tried  to 


120  The  Babe,  B.A. 

put  him  out,  failed,  but  left  himself  and 
his  partner  both  close  to  the  stump. 

The  Babe  smiled,  and  there  was  a  tea- 
party  of  four.  He  smiled  again  a  little 
unkindly.  He  put  Gingham  out,  and  he 
hit  Jones's  ball.  A  moment  afterwards  a 
frenzied  croquet  ball  bounded  into  the 
net  of  the  tennis-players,  and  caused  the 
spoon-faced  man,  for  the  first  time  that 
afternoon,  to  serve  two  consecutive  faults. 
Then  the  Babe  went  back  to  his  hoop. 
Gingham  was  of  a  peaceful  disposition 
but  rather  timid.  He  had,  however, 
caught  a  glimpse  of  Jones's  face  as  he 
walked  off  to  the  lawn-tennis  court,  and  it 
might  reasonably,  he  said  afterwards,  have 
frightened  a  bolder  man  than  he.  So  he 
turned  to  the  Babe. 

"  You  know  it 's  only  a  game,"  he  said, 
and  the  Babe  replied  still  rather  shrilly : 

"  Then  watch  me  play  it." 

Reggie  and  the  Babe  between  them 
could  easily  keep  Mr.  Jones's  ball  safely 
off  the  ground,  and  the  Babe  plodded 
on  till  he  too  was  a  rover,  and  Reggie 
and  he  went  out  in  the  next  two  turns. 


Croquet.  1 2 1 

"  A  very  pleasant  game,"  said  he  smil- 
ing. 

Jones  was  ill-advised  enough  to  murmur : 

"  Insolent  young  ass." 

The  Babe  heard  and  his  face  turned 
pink,  but  his  smile  suffered  no  diminution. 

"  A  very  pleasant  game,"  he  repeated, 
"  but  only  a  game." 


IX. — TEA  AT  THE  PITT. 

Dark  house  by  which  once  more  I  stand 
Here  in  the  long  unlovely  street. — THNNYSON. 

THE  Babe  was  leaning  out  of  the  win- 
dow of  the  rooms  he  had  moved  into  for 
the  Long,  which  looked  onto  the  Great 
Court  of  Trinity,  and  in  his  hands  was  a 
simple  sheet  of  foolscap  paper  rolled  up 
big  at  one  end  and  small  at  the  other. 
He  applied  his  mouth  intermittently  to 
the  small  end  of  this  really  elementary 
contrivance,  and,  in  his  hands,  like  the 
sonnet  in  the  hand  of  Milton,  "the  thing 
became  a  trumpet."  Unlike  Milton,  how- 
ever, he  was  in  no  way  liable  to  censure 
for  not  using  it  often  enough. 

He  had  been  working  for  nearly  two 
hours  that  morning,  and  it  was  only  just 
half-past  eleven.  He  had  got  up  at  eight, 
breakfasted,  and  had  really  been  at  it  ever 
since.  As  a  rule,  criticisms  on  himself  did 
not  make  the  least  impression  on  him,  but 
somehow  or  other  Mr.  Stewart's  unwil- 
lingness to  take  any  but  the  longest  odds 
on  the  subject  of  his  getting  through  the 


Tea  at  the  Pitt.  123 

tripos  had  struck  root  and  grown  up  rank- 
ling in  his  mind.  He  knew  quite  well  that 
he  had  as  much  ability  as  many  under- 
graduates who  tackle  that  examination 
successfully,  and  he  believed  that  if  he 
chose  he  could  acquire  a  sufficient  portion 
of  their  industry.  Hence  the  early  rising, 
the  history  books  scattered  on  the  table, 
and  indirectly  the  inter-mezzo  on  the  fools- 
cap thing. 

However,  at  twelve  he  was  going  to  his 
history  coach  for  an  hour,  and  he  allowed 
himself  twenty  minutes'  relaxation  before 
this.  He  had  watched  the  porter  take  his 
name  for  making  a  row  in  court,  so,  as  the 
worst  he  could  do  was  done,  there  was  ob- 
viously no  reason  why  he  should  discon- 
tinue making  a  row,  and  it  was  not  till  the 
mouthpiece  had  got  sodden  and  the  sides 
stuck  together  that  he  stopped. 

The  history  coach,  the  Babe  confessed, 
was  rather  a  trial.  He  lived  in  dusty, 
fusty  rooms,  and  he  himself  was  by  far 
the  dustiest,  fustiest  thing  in  them.  Dur- 
ing the  first  lesson  the  Babe  had  had  with 
him,  he  had  employed  his  hands  in  clean- 


124  The  Babe,  B.A. 

ing  his  nails  with  a  button-hook,  which 
was,  however,  better  than  that  he  should 
not  clean  them  at  all.  On  another  occa- 
sion a  spider  had  dropped  down  from  the 
ceiling  onto  the  top  of  his  head,  and  had 
walked  down  his  nose,  and  from  there 
had  let  itself  down  onto  the  note-book 
which  he  was  using.  He  was  short- 
sighted, and  finishing  the  lesson  at  that 
moment  and  being  entirely  unconscious 
of  the  spider,  had  shut  it  up  with  a  bang 
in  the  note-book,  and  the  spider  was  a 
fleshy  spider.  The  Babe  had  tried  to  get 
Mr.  Stewart  to  coach  him,  but  that  gen- 
tleman's time  was  too  deeply  engaged 
already.  His  own  work,  he  said,  "like 
topmost  Gargarus,"  took  the  morning,  and 
he  imagined  that  neither  he  nor  the  Babe 
would  care  to  meet  over  history,  however 
romantically  treated,  in  the  afternoon, 
while  social  calls  rendered  the  evening 
equally  impossible  for  both  of  them. 

So  the  Babe  went  three  times  a  week 
to  Mr.  Swotcham  of  the  spider.  He  was 
a  young  don,  but  the  habits  of  incessant 
study  had  early  bent  his  back,  bleared  his 
eyes,  and  given  him  a  weak,  nervous  man- 


Tea  at  the  Pitt.  125 

ner.  He  rarely  took  any  exercise,  and 
even  when  he  did  he  only  walked  a  little 
way  along  the  Trumpington  Road.  Out 
of  his  rooms  he  was  like  a  sheep  that  had 
gone  astray,  and  coasted  down  the  streets, 
keeping  close  to  the  houses,  as  if  afraid 
that,  should  he  launch  himself  into  mid- 
pavement,  he  would  lose  himself  irretriev- 
ably. He  was  a  member  of  an  occult, 
some  said  obscure,  club  called  the  Apos- 
tles, the  members  of  which  met  in  each 
other's  rooms  in  a  shame-faced  manner 
every  Saturday  night,  though  there  was 
really  nothing  in  the  least  shameful  about 
their  proceedings.  In  theory  it  was  sup- 
posed that  they  set  the  world  straight 
once  a  week,  but  no  doubt  they  lacked 
practical  ability.  The  Babe,  whose  varied 
acquaintance  included  several  members 
of  this  Society,  used  to  ask  them  to  din- 
ner on  Saturday  night,  in  order  to  have 
the  pleasure  of  hearing  them  excuse  them- 
selves at  a  quarter  to  ten.  The  excuse 
offered  was  always  the  same. 

"  I  'm  afraid  I  've  got  to  go  round  and 
see  a  man." 

The  Babe  followed  this  up  by  asking 


i26  The  Babe,  B.A. 

who  the  man  was,  to  which  the  invariable 
reply  was  :  "  Oh,  only  a  man  I  know." 
Then  the  brutal  Babe  throwing  the  mask 
aside  would  say  :  "  Oh,  you  're  going  to 
a  meeting  of  the  Apostles,  are  n't  you  ? " 
Somehow  the  members  seemed  rather 
ashamed  of  this  fact  being  thus  ruthlessly 
dragged  into  light,  and  the  Babe  in  his 
May  week  paper  had  informed  the  world 
that  the  Apostles  were  the  spiritual  de- 
scendants of  the  old  Hell-Fire  Club  of 
Medmenham  Abbey,  and  that  their  deeds 
grew  darker  and  darker  every  year.  For 
the  most  part  they  were  radical  Agnos- 
tics, and  they  disestablished  the  Eng- 
lish Church  about  once  a  month.  They 
affected  red  ties,  to  show  that  they  disap- 
proved of  everything. 

Swotcham  was  not  only  an  eminent 
Apostle,  a  sort  of  Peter  among  them,  but 
an  eminent  historian,  and  the  Babe  had 
the  sense  to  attend  to  what  he  said.  It 
is  true  that  this  morning  he  watched  with 
overpowering  interest  the  turning  over 
of  the  leaves  of  Swotcham's  note-book, 
until  the  corpse  of  the  fleshy  spider  was 


Tea  at  the  Pitt.  127 

discovered,  blotching  and  staining  the 
articles  of  the  Magna  Charta,  but  when 
Swotcham  had  scratched  it  off  with  a 
J  nib,  his  attention  wandered  no  more. 

It  was  a  hopelessly  wet  and  sloppy 
afternoon,  the  sort  of  afternoon  when 
everything  looks  at  its  worst,  and  Cam- 
bridge worst  of  all.  Grey  sheets  of  rain 
drifted  and  drizzled  over  the  Great  Court, 
driven  fretfully  against  the  window  panes 
by  a  cold  easterly  wind  which  struck  the 
spray  of  the  fountain  beyond  the  basin 
out  sideways  onto  the  path.  Outside  the 
gate,  the  lime  trees  wept  sooty  tears  and 
leaves  early-dead,  and  the  asphalt  of 
Trinity  Street  looked  like  the  surface 
of  some  stagnant  dirty  river,  distortedly 
reflecting  the  dull-faced  houses  on  each 
side.  A  melancholy  gurgle  of  water 
streamed  into  the  grating  in  the  centre 
of  the  so-called  Whewell's  Court,  and  its 
more  classical  name  seemed  to  be  divinely 
apt.  The  air  was  close,  cold,  and  infinitely 
damp,  and  two  or  three  terriers  inhumane- 
ly left  outside  the  Pitt,  appeared  like  a  real- 
istic rendering  of  discomfort  personified. 


128  The  Babe,  B.A. 

So  the  judicious  Babe  betook  himself 
to  the  smoking  room  of  that  club,  which 
always  maintains  a  uniformity  of  gloom 
and  comfort,  whatever  the  weather  is,  and 
thought  to  himself  as  he  settled  in  a  big 
armchair  that  until  he  left,  the  weather 
could  have  no  further  depressing  influence. 
He  took  out  of  the  library  the  inimitable 
Ravens/toe  which  he  already  knew  nearly 
by  heart,  and  read  with  undiminished 
enjoyment  of  how  Napoleon  and  a  colonial 
Bishop  whose  real  name  was  Jones,  gave 
testimonials  to  a  corn-cutter,  who  had  them 
printed  in  his  advertisement,  and  of  how 
Gus  and  Flora  were  naughty  in  church. 
Later  on,  he  proposed  to  have  hot  toast 
with  his  tea. 

He  had  not  been  there  long  when  Reg- 
gie came  in,  and  as  the  Babe  was  not 
disposed  to  talk,  and  merely  grunted 
when  he  was  sat  on,  he  got  out  a  new 
book  called  Gerald  Eversleys  Friendship, 
and  proceeded  to  read  about  the  peculiari- 
ties which  mark  the  boys  at  St.  Anselm's. 

A  short  silence. 

"  Goozlemy,  goozlemy,  goozlemy," 
quoted  the  Babe. 


Tea  at  the  Pitt.  129 

"  Look  here,  Babe." 

"  Well." 

"  Harry  Venniker  produces  from  the 
bottom  of  his  box  a  quantity  of  sporting 
prints,  and  an  enormous  stag's  head — 
a  '  royal '  he  called  it.  Did  you  ever  see 
a  play-box  that  size  ?  " 

"No.  There  is  n't  one.  '  My  dear, 
there  is  going  to  be  a  collection,  and  I 
have  left  my  purse  on  the  piano.'  I  wish 
I  knew  Flora." 

Silence. 

" '  After  all,  in  this  life  the  deepest, 
holiest  feelings  are  inexpressible.'  Oh,  I 
draw  the  line  somewhere — " 

"  Yes,  if  you  don't  draw  the  line  some- 
where," murmured  the  Babe,  "  where  are 
you  to  draw  the  line  ?  " 

"  Gerald  of  course  sobs  violently  on 
getting  into  bed,  the  first  night  at  St. 
Anselm's,  and  Harry  puts  his  hand  on  his 
shoulder,  and  says  he  '11  be  his  friend  for 
ever.  Then  '  Gerald  laid  his  head  anew 
upon  the  pillow,  and  was  at  peace.'  Good 
Lord  !  This  was  an  '  incident  of  which 
the  pale  moon,  throned  in  heaven,  was  the 
sole  arbitress.'  He  says  so,"  shouted 


130  The  Babe,  B.A. 

Reggie,  "and  it  is  a  'study  in  real  life.' 
He  says  that  too,  on  the  title-page,  in 
capital  letters.  He  says  it  very  loud  and 
plain,  several  times." 

The  Babe  chuckled  comfortably,  and 
shut  up  Ravenshoc. 

"  I  read  it  yesterday,"  he  said.  "  Turn 
on  to  about  page  90  or  so.  I  think  you  '11 
find  the  passage  marked  in  pencil.  He 
has  to  sing  a  song  in  which  a  swear-word 
comes,  and  when  he  gets  to  it,  he  breaks 
down,  hides  his  face  in  his  hands,  and 
rushes  from  the  hall." 

Reggie's  eyes  grew  rounder  and  rounder. 

"  So  they  propose  to  send  him  to  Cov- 
entry for  a  month." 

"  That 's  the  place  my  governor  is 
member  for,"  remarked  the  Babe,  "  and 
they  make  bicycles  there." 

"  The  little  brute — aged  thirteen,  Babe, 
about  as  old  as  you,"  continued  Reggie, 
"  reads  books  of  science  (particularly 
archaeology),  even  sermons  and  books  of 
controversial  divinity,  in  the  college  library. 
If  that  is  real  life,  give  me  fiction." 

"Quite  a   little  Zola,"   said  the   Babe, 


Tea  at  the  Pitt.  131 

"  our  new,  harmless,  English  realist.  A 
little  later  on  a  churchyard  becomes  an 
element  in  Gerald's  life.  Are  churchyards 
elements  in  your  life,  Reggie?" 

"  Yes,  of  course." 

"  Later  on  again,"  continued  the  Babe, 
"  he  gets  in  a  row  for  cribbing.  The 
author  gets  hold  of  such  wonderfully  new 
and  original  situations.  The  evidence 
against  him  is  overwhelming,  absolutely 
overwhelming,  and  the  mystery  is  never 
cleared  up.  As  you  read,  your  suspense 
is  only  equalled  by  the  suspense  of  the 
author.  He  finds  it  almost  unbearable." 

"  I  can't  read  any  more,"  said  Reggie. 
"  Tell  me  what  happens." 

"  Oh,  all  the  regular  things.  Harry  gets 
into  the  eleven,  and  Gerald  Eversley  turns 
into  Robert  Elsmere  for  a  time.  Then 
of  course  he  falls  in  love  with  Harry's 
sister,  who  gallops  away  in  consumption, 
and  dies.  So  Gerald  determines  to  com- 
mit suicide,  and  leaves  a  note  for  Harry 
saying  what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  just  as 
he  is  preparing  to  jump  into  a  lake — he 
has  previously  thrown  his  coat  with  a 


132  The  Babe,  B.A. 

stone  wrapped  up  in  it,  into  the  water — he 
feels  a  hand  on  his  shoulder.  It's  Harry 
of  course.  Naturally  he  has  found  the 
letter,  which  tells  him  that  the  writer  will 
be  a  corpse  when  he  finds  it,  which  is 
a  black  lie,  and  goes  off  just  in  time  to 
the  place  where  Gerald  very  prudently 
tells  him  that  the  deed  will  be  done.  So 
Gerald  goes  to  a  town  in  the  North  of 
England,  probably  Coventry  again,  and 
wears  a  locket  of  purest  enamel,  with  the 
name  '  Ethel '  on  it.  The  book  ends  : '  He 
is  dead  now.' ' 

Reggie  was  still  turning  over  the  leaves 
of  the  book. 

"Who  is  Mr.  Selby?" 

"  The  good  young  master  with  a  secret 
sorrow,  to  whom  all  the  boys  open  their 
hearts." 

"I  see  that  Harry  lies  at  death's  door, 
having  caught  inflammation  of  the  lungs  in 
a  football  match.  That's  another  original 
situation." 

"  Oh  dear,  yes,  and  old  gentlemen  can- 
not meet  fifty  years  after  they  have  left 
school  without  saying  :  '  You  remember 


Tea  at  the  Pitt.  133 

that  catch  ?  My  dear  fellow,  why  did  you 
let  that  ball  go  through  your  legs  ? '  I 
would  sooner  be  Babe  all  my  life  than 
live  to  be  an  old  man  like  that." 

"  And  Harry  gets  the  last  goal  just  be- 
fore time.  The  back's  leg  '  flashed.'  I  've 
never  seen  your  legs  flash,  Babe." 

"  No— I  'm  only  a  half-back." 

"  That  accounts  for  it.  Let 's  have  tea, 
and  then  we'll  play  a  game  of  pills." 

"  All  right.  Then  you  can  dine  in  Hall 
with  me.  I  can't  afford  dinner  in  my 
room,  and  we  '11  work  afterwards." 


X. — ROYAL  VISITORS. 

"  Prince  and  Princess !  "  he  cried.    "  That  means 
Will  play  at  being  kings  and  queens."— HOTCH-POTCH  VERSES. 

MR.  STEWART,  as  has  been  indicated 
before,  had  a  weakness,  and  that  was  an 
amiable  and  harmless  one.  His  weakness 
was  for  the  aristocracy.  Compared  with 
this,  his  feeling  for  royalty  which  was  of 
the  same  order,  but  vastly  intensified, 
might  also  be  called  a  total  failure  of 
power,  a  sort  of  mental  general  paralysis. 
So  when  one  day  towards  the  middle  of 
August,  the  wife  of  the  Heir  Apparent 
of  a  certain  European  country  caused  a 
telegram  to  be  sent  to  him,  to  the  effect 
that  her  Royal  Highness  wished  to  visit 
Cambridge  before  leaving  the  country, 
and  would  be  graciously  pleased  to  take 
her  luncheon  with  him,  Mr.  Stewart  was 
naturally  a  proud  man.  He  bought  a  long 
strip  of  brilliant  red  carpet,  he  ordered  a 
lunch  from  the  kitchen  that  set  the  mouth 
of  the  cook  watering,  "  and  altogether,"  as 
the  Babe  very  profanely  and  improperly 
said,  "  made  as  much  fuss  as  if  the  Virgin 
134 


Royal  Visitors.  135 

Mary  had  been  expected."  He  also  sent 
printed  cards,  "  to  have  the  honour  of," 
to  the  Vice-chancellor,  the  heads  of  four 
colleges  and  their  wives,  and  also  to  an- 
other Fellow  of  his  college,  who  only  a 
term  before,  had  entertained  at  tea  a  regu- 
lar royal  queen,  and  had  asked  him  to 
meet  her.  And  remembering  that  he  had 
once  met  the  Prince  of  Wales  at  a  dance 
in  London  given  by  the  Babe's  mother, 
he  also  asked  the  Babe.  At  the  last  mo- 
ment, however,  the  Princess  sent  a  tele- 
gram saying  that  she  was  going  to  bring 
her  husband  with  her,  which  would  mean 
two  more  places,  one  for  him,  and  one  for 
his  gentleman-in-waiting,  and  Mr.  Stewart, 
whose  table  would  not  hold  any  more  than 
fifteen  conveniently,  sent  a  hurried  mes- 
sage and  apology  to  the  Babe,  saying  that 
all  this  was  very  upsetting,  and  unexpected, 
and  uncomfortable,  and  inconvenient,  but 
that  he  was  sure  the  Babe  would  see  his 
difficulty.  He  would,  however,  be  de- 
lighted and  charmed  if  the  Babe  would 
come  in  afterwards,  and  at  least  take  a  cup 
of  coffee,  and  a  cigarette  (for  the  Princess 


136  The  Babe,  B.A. 

did  not  mind  smoking,  and  indeed  once 
at  Aix-les-Bains  he  had  seen  her,  etc.,  etc.), 
and  sun  himself  in  the  smile  of  royalty. 

The  Babe  received  this  message  at  half- 
past  one  ;  he  had  refused  an  invitation  to 
lunch  at  King's  on  the  strength  of  the 
previous  engagement,  and  he  was  rather 
cross.  It  was  too  late  to  go  to  King's 
now,  but  after  a  few  moments'  thought, 
his  face  suddenly  cleared  and  he  sent  a 
note  to  Reggie  saying  that  he  would  come 
round  about  half-past  two,  adding  that  he 
had  "got  an  idea,"  which  they  would 
work  out  together.  He  then  ordered  some 
lunch  from  the  kitchen,  which  there  was 
little  chance  of  his  receiving  for  some  time, 
for  all  the  cooks  and  kitchen  boys  who 
were  not  engaged  in  serving  up  Mr.  Stew- 
art's lunch,  were  busy  making  little  excur- 
sions into  the  court,  where  they  stood 
about  with  trays  on  their  heads,  to  give 
the  impression  that  they  were  going  to  or 
from  some  other  rooms,  in  order  to  catch 
a  sight  of  Mr.  Stewart's  illustrious  guests 
as  they  crossed  the  court.  However,  the 
Babe  went  to  the  kitchen  himself  as  it  did 


Royal  Visitors.  137 

not  come,  and  said  bitter  things  to  the 
head  cook  who  was  a  Frenchman,  and 
asked  him  whether  he  had  already  forgot- 
ten about  Alsace  and  Lorraine. 

He  lunched  alone  and  half-way  through 
he  nearly  choked  himself  with  laughing 
suddenly,  apparently  at  nothing  at  all, 
and  when  he  had  finished  he  went  round 
to  King's.  He  and  Reggie  talked  to- 
gether for  about  an  hour,  and  then  went 
out  shopping. 

Later  in  the  day  Mr.  Stewart  called  on 
the  Babe,  to  express  his  regret  at  what 
had  happened,  but  his  regret  was  largely 
tempered  with  sober  and  loyal  exultation 
at  the  success  of  his  party.  Their  Royal 
Highnesses  had  been  the  embodiment  of 
royal  graciousness  and  amiability ;  they 
had  written  their  names  in  his  birthday 
book,  and  promised  to  send  their  photo- 
graphs. The  conversation,  it  appeared, 
had  been  carried  on  chiefly  in  French,  a 
language  with  which  Mr.  Stewart  was  per- 
fectly acquainted,  and  which  he  spoke  not 
only  elegantly,  but  what  is  better,  intelli- 
gibly. The  Princess  was  the  most  beauti- 


138  The  Babe,  B.A. 

ful  and  delightful  of  women,  the  Prince  the 
handsomest  and  most  charming^of  men. 
Mr.  Stewart,  in  fact,  had  quite  lost  his 
heart  to  them  both,  and  he  had  promised 
to  look  them  up  when  he  next  happened 
to  be  travelling  in  their  country,  which, 
thought  the  cynical  Babe,  would  probably 
be  soon.  Best  of  all,  Mr.  Medingway, 
the  entertainer  of  queens,  could  not  talk 
French,  though  he  was  the  first  Arabic 
scholar  in  Europe,  a  language,  however, 
in  which  it  was  not  possible  for  a  mixed 
company  to  converse,  and  he  had  neces- 
sarily been  quite  thrown  into  the  shade. 

The  Babe  received  this  all  with  the 
utmost  interest  and  sympathy.  He  re- 
gretted that  he  had  not  been  able  to  come 
in  afterwards,  but  he  hoped  Mr.  Stewart 
could  come  to  breakfast  next  day  at  nine. 
Mr.  Stewart  both  could  and  would,  and 
as  soon  as  he  had  gone,  the  Babe  danced 
the  pas-de-quatre  twice  round  the  room. 

That  evening  Reggie  and  the  Babe 
went  to  call  on  Jack  Marsden  who  had 
come  up  for  a  week.  Jack  was  very  short, 
barely  five  feet  high,  but  he  made  up  for 


Royal  Visitors.  139 

that  by  being  very  stout.  The  Babe 
also  got  a  fine  nib,  and  employed  half  an 
hour  in  copying  something  very  carefully 
onto  the  back  of  a  plain  black-edged 
envelope. 

He  was  up  in  good  time  next  morning, 
and  he  had  three  letters  by  the  post. 
One  of  these  was  black-edged,  and  had 
on  the  back  of  the  envelope  a  Royal 
Crown,  and  Windsor  Castle.  He  opened 
them  all,  and  left  this  last  face  downwards 
on  the  table. 

Mr.  Stewart  came  in,  still  in  the  best  of 
spirits,  and  walked  about  the  room,  expa- 
tiating on  the  superiority  of  royal  families, 
while  the  Babe  made  tea. 

"  It  makes  a  difference,"  said  Stewart, 
"  it  must  make  a  difference,  if  one's  fathers 
and  forefathers  have  been  kings.  One 
would  have  the  habit  and  the  right  of 
command.  I  don't  know  if  I  ever  told 
you—" 

His  eye  caught  sight  of  the  Royal 
Crown  and  Windsor  Castle,  and  he 
paused  a  moment. 

"  I   don't  know  if  I   ever  told  you  of 


The  Babe,  B.A. 


that  very  pleasant  day  I  once  spent  at 
Sandringham." 

"Yes,  you  told  me  about  it  yesterday," 
said  the  Babe  brutally. 

"  I  suppose  they  are  all  up  in  Scotland 
now,"  said  Stewart. 

"  No,  the  Queen  is  at  Windsor  for  a 
day  or  two,"  said  the  Babe.  "  She  goes 
up  early  next  week.  Will  you  have  a 
sole?" 

"  Thanks  —  not  a  whole  one.  I  asked 
because  I  saw  you  had  a  letter  here  from 
Windsor." 

The  Babe  looked  up  quickly  and  just 
changed  colour  —  he  could  do  it  quite 
naturally  —  and  picked  up  his  letters. 

"  Yes,  it  's  from  my  cousin/'  he  said. 
"  She  's  in  waiting,  just  now." 

"Lady  Julia?" 

"  Yes.  Apparently  they  are  not  going 
straight  up." 

The  subject  dropped,  but  a  few  minutes 
later  the  Babe  said  suddenly  and  in  an 
absent-minded  way. 

"  I  don't  think  she  's  ever  been  to  Cam- 
bridge before." 


Royal  Visitors.  141 

"Lady  Julia?" 

Again  the  Babe  started. 

"  Yes,  Lady  Julia.  She  is  thinking  of 
coming  up  to — to  see  me  on  Monday. 
Is  there  anything  in  the  papers?" 

4<  I  only  read  the  Morning  Post"  said 
Mr.  Stewart.  "  There  is  of  course  a  short 
account  of  the  Prince's  visit  here,  but  I 
saw  nothing  else." 

For  the  next  day  or  two  the  Babe  was 
very  busy,  too  busy  to  do  much  work. 
He  went  more  than  once  with  Reggie  and 
Jack  to  the  A.D.C.  where  they  looked  up 
several  dresses,  and  he  had  a  long  inter- 
view with  the  proprieter  of  the  Bull.  He 
took  a  slip  of  paper  to  the  printer's,  with 
certain  elaborate  directions,  and  on  Mon- 
day morning  there  arrived  at  Trinity  a 
Bath  chair.  Then  he  went  to  Mr.  Stew- 
art, who  was  his  tutor,  and  had  a  short 
talk,  with  the  result  that  at  a  quarter  to 
two,  Mr.  Stewart  was  pacing  agitatedly 
up  and  down  his  room,  stopping  always  in 
front  of  the  window,  from  which  he  could 
see  the  staircase  on  which  were  the  Babe's 
rooms,  and  on  which  now  appeared  a  long 


H2  The  Babe,  B.A. 

strip  of  crimson  carpet.  As  luck  would 
have  it  Mr.  Medingway  selected  this  time 
for  going  to  Mr.  Stewart's  rooms  to  bor- 
row a  book  and  the  two  looked  out  of  the 
window  together. 

The  Trinity  clock  had  just  struck  two, 
when  a  smart  carriage  and  pair  hired  from 
the  Bull  stopped  at  the  gate,  and  the 
Babe's  gyp,  who  had  been  waiting  at  the 
porter's  lodge,  wheeled  the  Bath  chair  up 
to  it.  Out  of  it  stepped  first  the  Babe, 
next  a  short  stout  old  lady  dressed  in 
black,  and  last  a  very  tall  young  woman 
elegantly  dressed.  She  was  quite  as  tall 
as  the  Babe,  and  seemed  the  type  of  the 
English  woman  of  the  upper  class,  who 
plays  lawn-tennis  and  rides  bicycles.  The 
gyp  bowed  low  as  he  helped  the  old  lady 
into  the  chair,  and  the  Babe,  hat  in  hand 
until  the  old  lady  told  him  to  put  it  on, 
and  the  tall  girl  walked  one  on  each  side 
of  it.  The  porter  who  was  just  going 
into  the  lodge,  stopped  dead  as  they 
passed,  and  also  took  off  his  hat,  and  the 
Bath  chair  passed  down  an  inclined  plane 
of  boards  which  had  been  arranged  over 
the  steps  into  the  court. 


Royal  Visitors.  H3 

Mr.  Stewart,  standing  with  Medingway 
at  his  bow  window,  saw  them  enter,  and  in 
a  voice  trembling  with  suppressed  excite- 
ment said  to  his  companion  :  "  Here  they 
are,"  and  though  benedictions  were  not  fre- 
quent on  his  lips,  added  :  "  God  bless  her." 

He  pressed  Medingway  to  stop  for 
lunch,  and  the  two  sat  down  together. 

"  Was  it  in  the  papers  this  morning  ?" 
asked  the  latter. 

Mr.  Stewart  took  the  Morning  Post 
from  the  sofa. 

"  It  is  only  announced  that  the  Court 
will  leave  Windsor  to-day.  They  are  ex- 
pected at  Balmoral  on  Wednesday,  not 
Tuesday,  you  see.  It  does  not  give  their 
movements  for  to-day." 

Mr.  Medingway  was  looking  out  of  the 
window. 

"  They  have  got  to  the  staircase,"  he 
said.  "  And  she  is  getting  out.  Are  we 
—is  anyone  going  in  afterwards  ?  " 

"  I  believe  not.  It  is  to  be  absolutely 
quiet,  and  strictly  incognito.  They  leave 
again  by  the  4.35." 

"  An  interesting,  a  unique  occasion," 
said  Medingway. 


H4  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  Yes ;  the  Babe  takes  it  all  so  easily. 
I  wish  I  had  been  able  to  have  him  to 
lunch  last  week." 

Mr.  Medingway  smiled,  and  helped 
himself  to  a  slice  of  galantine. 

"  They  would  n't  perhaps  take  a  cup  of 
tea  before  going— 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  Mr.  Stewart,  who, 
if  he  was  not  playing  the  beau  role  to-day, 
at  any  rate  had  been  in  the  confidence  of 
him  who  was.  "  The  Babe  was  most  ur- 
gent that  I  should  not  let  it  get  about. 
Indeed,  I  have  committed  a  breach  of  con- 
fidence in  telling  you.  Of  course  I  know 
it  will  go  no  further." 

Meantime,  the  Babe  having  successfully 
conveyed  his  party  across  the  court,  and 
having  taken  the  precaution  of  sporting 
his  door,  was  having  lunch.  Opposite  to 
him  sat  Jack  Marsden,  dressed  in  a  black 
silk  gown  ;  on  his  right  Reggie,  attired  in 
the  height  of  fashion.  He  wore  a  blue 
dress  with  very  full  sleeves,  and  a  large 
picture  hat.  He  was  taking  a  long  draught 
of  Lager  beer. 

"  Stewart  and   Medingway  both  saw," 


Royal  Visitors.  H5 

he  said,  "  and  they  are  both  at  Stewart's 
window  now." 

"  It  was  complete,"  said  the  Babe  sol- 
emnly, "  wonderfully  complete,  and  the 
bogus  copy  of  the  Morning  Post,  which  I 
substituted  for  his,  was  completer  still.  It 
will  also  puzzle  them  to  know  how  you  get 
away,  for  they  are  sure  to  wait  there  on 
the  chance  of  seeing  you  again.  I  should  n't 
wonder  if  Stewart  went  to  the  station. 
And  now  if  you  've  finished,  you  can 
change  in  my  bedroom,  and  we'll  go 
round  and  get  a  fourth  to  play  tennis. 
Stewart  must  confess  that  I  have  gone 
one  better  than  either  him  or  Med- 
ingway." 


XI. — THE  REHEARSAL. 

They  had  a  rustic  woodland  air. 

— After  WORDSWORTH. 

EALING  had  not  been  up  in  the  Long, 
but  Reggie  and  the  Babe  spent  a  week 
with  him  early  in  October,  before  going 
up  to  Cambridge  again.  They  arrived  on 
the  last  day  of  September,  and  from  morn 
till  eve  on  the  first  day  the  silly  pheasants 
fled  before  the  Babe's  innocuous  gun. 
However,  that  gentleman  said  he  liked 
aiming,  without  any  thought  of  ulterior 
consequences,  and  that  this  was  the  true 
essence  of  sport,  and  as  Reggie  and  Eal- 
ing  were  both  good  shots,  it  is  to  be  pre- 
sumed that  everyone,  even  including  the 
keeper,  was  fairly  contented. 

The  October  term  began  as  October 
terms  always  begin.  There  was,  as  usual, 
a  far  larger  number  of  Freshmen  of  unique 
brilliance  than  had  ever  been  heard  of 
before,  who  were  duly  asked  to  coffee 
with  men  of  other  years  after  Hall,  and 
these  ceremonies  were  neither  more  nor 
less  exciting  than  usual.  There  was  the 
146 


The  Rehearsal.  H7 

Freshman  who  wore  spectacles,  and  did  n't 
play  games  because  he  had  a  weak  heart, 
and  who  when  asked  from  what  school  he 
came,  said  '  Giggleswick,'  with  almost  in- 
credible coolness ;  there  was  the  Fresh- 
man who  had  been  captain  of  the  eleven 
in  some  obscure  school,  and  already  saw 
himself  captain  of  the  University  team  ; 
there  were  Freshmen  who  could  play  all 
kinds  of  music,  the  Freshman  who  played 
the  flute,  and  the  Freshman  who  played 
the  violin,  and  probably  the  Freshman 
who  could  play  the  sackbut  and  psaltery  ; 
the  Freshman  who  already  seemed  to 
know  half  the  University,  and  the  Fresh- 
man who  knew  nobody  at  all  ;  the  Fresh- 
man who  called  his  tutor  "  Sir,"  and  the 
Freshman  who  very  kindly  treated  him  as 
one  man  of  the  world  treats  another. 
There  were  the  usual  trial  games  of  foot- 
ball played  under  a  tropical  sun,  and  the 
usual  interminable  lists  of  tubbings  put 
up  in  the  Reading-Room. 

But  after  a  fortnight  or  so  the  world  in 
general,  with  all  its  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men,  settled  down  into  its  usual  routine, 


H8  The  Babe,  B.A. 

the  Freshmen  who  had  all  started  together 
diverged  into  the  sets  where  their  par- 
ticular tastes  attracted  them.  Some  joined 
musical  societies,  and  some  were  put  up 
and  blackballed  at  a  meeting  of  the  old 
Giggleswickians ;  some  played  in  the 
Freshmen's  matches,  and  some  bought 
college  blazers,  and  passed  contented  and 
leisurely  afternoons  in  canoes  on  the 
Backs.  Alan  St.  Aubyn  published  his 
annual  humorous  libel  on  what  he  play- 
fully called  University  Life,  and  the  Babe 
moved  from  Malcolm  Street  into  the  rooms 
he  had  occupied  in  the  Long  in  the  Great 
Court  Trinity,  and  Mr.  Sykes  signalised 
the  occasion  by  killing  the  under-porter's 
best  cat. 

No  doubt  it  was  primarily  the  best  cat's 
fault,  for  she  had  taken  an  independent 
and  solitary  walk  on  her  own  account 
down  Trinity  Street,  and  Sykes  who  was 
waiting  at  the  gate,  quite  quiet  and  as 
good  as  gold,  for  the  Babe,  who  had  gone 
into  his  room  to  put  down  his  cap  and 
gown,  saw  her  returning.  So  he  killed 
her.  Of  course  he  had  to  tell  the  Babe 


The  Rehearsal.  H9 

about  it,  and  he  thought  the  best  plan 
would  be  to  take  the  mangled  corpse — 
she  was  not  neatly  killed — to  the  Babe's 
rooms,  which,  though  he  was  not  allowed 
in  college,  he  happened  to  know,  and  the 
first  thing  the  porter  saw  was  Mr.  Sykes 
racing  across  the  grass  with  his  best  cat 
hopelessly  defunct,  dangling  from  his 
mouth.  He  followed,  but  Sykes  got 
there  first,  and  was  wagging  his  stumpy 
tail  with  a  pleased  air,  as  he  deposited 
his  burden  on  the  hearth-rug,  when  the 
infuriated  porter  entered. 

The  porter  said  : 

(I.)  That  Sykes  had  no  business  to  kill 
his  cat. 

(II.)  That  he  had,  if  possible,  even  less 
business  in  college. 

(III.)  That  Sykes  ought  to  be  pois- 
oned. 

The  Babe  answered  : 

(I.)  That  there  was  no  question  of 
poisoning  Sykes. 

(II.)  That  the  death  must  have  taken 
place  outside  college,  for  he  had  seen 
Sykes  enter  with  the  corpse  in  his  mouth. 


150  The  Babe,  B.A. 

(III.)  That  the  cat  had  no  more  busi- 
ness in  Trinity  Street  than  Sykes  had  in 
college,  so  it  was  six  of  one  and  half  a 
dozen  of  the  other. 

(IV.)     That  Sykes  should  be  beaten. 

(V.)  That,  though  the  cat  was  not 
worth  it,  sentiment  went  for  something, 
and  there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  sovereign. 

So  Sykes  was  beaten  there  and  then 
with  a  rug  strap,  and  the  porter  had  a  sov- 
ereign, and  the  beaten  Sykes  was  granted 
safe  conduct  out  of  college  again. 

The  Babe  took  a  hansom  down  to  the 
theatre,  for  he  was  going  to  rehearse  for 
the  Greek  play,  and  blew  tobacco  smoke 
at  Sykes  all  the  way  to  show  him  he  was 
in  disgrace.  He  had  not  much  wanted  to 
act,  for  it  meant  six  weeks  of  rehearsing 
and  learning  his  part,  but  he  had  consented 
to  read  through  the  play  and  see  whether 
the  part  of  Clytemnestra  in  the  Agamem- 
non did  not  recommend  itself  to  him.  This 
had  of  course  ended  in  his  undertaking  it, 
and  he  found  that  though  he  had  dropped 
Greek  for  two  years,  he  did  not  experience 
much  difficulty  in  learning  his  part. 


The  Rehearsal.  151 

The  theatre  where  the  Agamemnon  was 
to  be  performed  was  a  curiously  shabby 
building,  resembling  an  overgrown  barn, 
one  of  the  "  greater  barns,"  so  said  the 
Babe,  mentioned  in  a  parable.  A  low 
tunnel,  resembling  the  subway  in  Metro- 
politan underground  stations  led  into  it 
from  the  street,  and  from  the  tu  nnel  opened 
various  doors,  which  led  into  rooms  re- 
sembling economically  constructed  ken- 
nels. One  of  these,  humorously  called 
the  smoking-room,  presumably  because 
the  audience  invariably  smoked  in  the 
passage,  was  rendered  additionally  allur- 
ing by  a  long,  low  plank,  like  those  sup- 
plied to  third  class  waiting-rooms,  which 
ran  down  the  length  of  it.  The  outer  wall, 
in  all  its  unveiled  glory  of  brick  and  mortar, 
was  further  decorated  by  photographs  of 
the  Compton  Company,  in  which  actors 
and  actresses  alike  seemed  devoured  by 
a  futile  endeavour  to  acquire  those  casts 
of  expression  which  are  associated  with 
"persons  of  genius  and  sensibility."  A 
man  was  engaged  in  kindling  reluctant 
footlights  when  the  Babe  entered,  and  he 


152  The  Babe,  B.A. 

had  time  to  bestow  the  minutest  atten- 
tion on  the  very  vivid  drop-scene  which 
was  down,  before  the  others  appeared. 
It  represented  a  gloomy  and  nameless 
marsh,  in  the  corner  of  which  was  moored 
a  magenta  boat,  into  which  a  young  lady 
in  a  green  bonnet  was  being  assisted  by  a 
young  gentleman  of  abhorrent  demeanour 
and  odiously  familiar  manner.  He  wore 
a  straw  hat  and  a  blue  frock-coat,  and  was 
smoking  an  enormous  cigar.  Over  their 
heads  hovered  a  gigantic  bird  of  prey, 
probably  a  vulture,  confident  no  doubt 
that  the  fatal  exhalations  from  the  marsh, 
or  their  own  unfitness  to  live,  would  soon 
supply  him  with  a  delicate  supper  com- 
posed of  the  remains  of  this  ill-attired 
pair.  A  painted  but  unexplained  Vene- 
tian mast — in  popular  language,  a  barber's 
pole — stuck  out  of  the  bulrushes  in  the 
middle  distance,  and  behind,  the  sun  ap- 
peared to  have  just  set  in  a  gory  sky  over 
the  mountains,  which  stood  up  brilliantly 
blue  in  the  background. 

It  was   a  miserably  cold  morning,   and 
Clytemnestra  sat  in  a  thick  ulster  with  a 


The  Rehearsal.  153 

bull-dog  on  her  knees,  till  it  was  time  for 
her  to  appear,  and  watched  a  curiously 
dressed  chorus  of  Argive  elders  headed 
by  Reggie  in  flannels  and  a  blazer,  for  he 
had  been  playing  tennis,  manoeuvre  round 
a  stage  director,  whom  a  vivid  imagina- 
tion construed  into  an  altar.  Two  other 
stage  directors  quarrelled  with  each  other 
in  the  background,  till  the  conductor  who 
was  directing  the  chorus  asked  them  to 
be  quiet.  Thus  he  secured  for  himself 
the  hostility  of  all  the  stage  directors,  who 
resented  the  attack  made  on  their  class, 
and  who  lay  in  wait  to  contradict  him 
rudely  on  the  earliest  possible  occasion. 

The  Babe,  meantime,  had  wandered  off 
the  stage  into  the  wings,  in  search  of  a 
fire,  and  Mr.  Sykes,  left  to  himself,  recog- 
nised Reggie  as  a  friend  among  the  hetero- 
geneous elders,  and  trotted  across  to  him, 
wheezing  pathetically.  The  conductor 
had  stopped  the  chorus  in  order  to  point 
out  some  mistake  the  tenors  had  made, 
and  was  singing  the  passage  himself  in  a 
fruity  falsetto  voice,  and  Reggie,  who  was 
a  bass,  was  patting  Sykes,  when  the  voice 


154  The  Babe,  B.A. 

of  one  of  the  hostile  stage  directors  broke 
in— 

"  The  rehearsal,"  he  said  firmly,  "  will 
proceed  when  the  leader  of  the  Argive 
elders  has  quite  finished  playing  with  a 
bull-dog.  Please  send  the  bull-dog  out  of 
the  theatre." 

"  It 's  Clytemnestra's,"  said  Reggie. 

The  Babe  re-appeared  at  this  mo- 
ment. 

"Where's  Bill?"  he  asked.  "  Oh,  there 
he  is.  Come  here,  darling.  Oh,  are  you 
waiting  for  me  ?  " 

The  conductor  laid  down  his  baton. 

"  Settle  it  among  yourselves,"  he  said, 
"  and  tell  me  when  you  are  ready.  I  may 
remark  that  I  am  very  busy,  and  that  tny 
time  is  not  my  own." 

Mr.  Sykes  meantime  was  sniffing  sus- 
piciously round  the  heels  of  the  altar,  and 
the  altar  was  getting  visibly  nervous. 

The  Babe  supposing  that  his  entrance 
had  come,  began  reciting  his  first  lines  in 
a  loud  voice,  and  the  stage  directors  and 
the  conductors  made  common  cause  against 
him. 


The  Rehearsal.  155 

"  If  Clytemnestra  would  kindly  be 
quiet,"  said  one. 

"  And  take  away  her  horrible  dog,"  put 
in  the  altar. 

"  The  chorus  might  proceed,"  shouted 
the  conductor. 

The  Babe  with  a  look  of  injured  inno- 
cence on  his  face  retired  to  his  chair,  fol- 
lowed reluctantly  by  Sykes,  who  was  not 
satisfied  about  the  altar,  and  the  practice 
went  on. 

But  the  truce  between  the  conductor 
and  the  stage  directors  was  only  an  armed 
neutrality.  One  of  them  in  particular,  a 
bustling  little  man  with  a  honey-coloured 
moustache  and  a  Paderewski  head  of  hair, 
was  waiting  to  fall  upon  him.  He  was  a 
student  of  all  branches  of  what  Stewart 
would  have  called  "  delightful  and  useless 
knowledge  "  ;  on  such  subjects  he  has  per- 
haps a  wider  and  more  elaborately  special- 
ised information  than  any  man  in  England. 
He  could  have  told  you  with  the  most 
minute  particulars  the  exact  shape  of  the 
earrings  worn  by  Greek  women  of  the  fifth 
century  B.C.,  the  particular  way  in  which 


156  The  Babe,  B.A. 

athletes  of  the  fourth  century  brushed 
their  hair,  the  conformation  of  the  lobe  of 
the  ear  in  female  statues  of  the  third  cen- 
tury, or  the  proportionate  length  of  the 
little  finger  nail  to  the  eye-socket  in 
bronzes  of  the  Hadrian  epoch.  He  could 
have  prescribed  you  the  ingredients  which 
made  the  red  in  Botticelli's  Tobias,  last- 
ing, through  the  want  of  which  Turner's 
sunsets  paled  almost  as  fast  as  the  sunsets 
themselves ;  he  had  penetrated  into  the 
dens  of  the  forgers  at  Rome  which  lie  in 
the  street  which  no  one  can  find  between 
the  Via  Nazionale  and  the  Capitol ;  he  had 
been  twice  round  the  world,  and  spoke 
five  dialects  of  Mexican  ;  he  had  looked  on 
the  city  of  Mecca,  and  kodaked  the  in- 
terior of  the  mosque  of  the  Seven  Curses 
of  the  Prophet  ;  he  had  dived  for  pearls  in 
the  Coromandel  Sea,  and  evaded  by  a 
hair-breadth  the  jaws  of  the  blue-nosed 
shark  as  it  rolled  over  on  its  back  to  snap 
him  in  two  ;  he  knew  intimately  a  lineal 
descendant  of  Adamo  di  Brescia,  the  coiner 
of  the  Inferno,  and  asserted  that  in  all 
probability  the  forefather  was  a  clumsier 


The  Rehearsal.  157 

workman  than  his  son,  or  he  would  never 
have  been  detected.  And  on  all  these 
subjects  and  many  others  equally  abstruse 
he  could  give  you  statistics,  as  dry  as  the 
facts  themselves  were  interesting.  Once 
or  twice,  it  is  true,  he  had  been  caught  in 
an  apparent  error,  but  he  had  always  been 
able  to  give  a  perfectly  satisfactory  ex- 
planation of  it  afterwards,  with  hardly  any 
time  for  reflection.  Such  qualifications 
had  eminently  fitted  him  for  the  part  of 
stage-manager  in  a  Greek  play,  and  he 
certainly  added  to  these,  immense  zeal  and 
industry.  His  name  was  Propert,  and 
his  college  was  Peterhouse. 

For  some  minutes  he  stood  grasping 
his  hair  with  both  hands  in  an  incipient 
frenzy,  as  the  chorus  proceeded,  but  at 
last  he  could  stand  it  no  longer,  and  he 
clapped  his  hands  loudly. 

"It  is  all  wrong,"  he  said,  "you  have 
not  got  the  spirit  of  it.  You  do  not  sound 
the  note  of  fate.  Those  last  bars  should 
be  a  long  low  wail,  prophetic  of  woe,  and 
pianissimo — -pianissimo  ma  con  smorgando 
tremuloso." 


158  The  Babe,  B.A. 

He  patted  the  air  in  front  of  Reggie, 
with  an  eloquent  gesture. 

"They  are  marked^;,"  said  the  leader 
of  the  Argive  elders  in  good  plain  Eng- 
lish. 

"  Well,  you  must  erase  your  double 
forte,"  said  Dr.  Propert 

The  conductor  folded  his  arms,  and 
waited  till  Dr.  Propert  had  retired  up 
O.  P. 

"  We  will  now  begin  again  four  bars 
back,  at  the  double  forte,"  he  remarked. 

"  Yes,  pianissimo"  said  the  doctor  turn- 
ing round. 

The  Argive  elders  looked  puzzled.  Di- 
plomacy, to  judge  by  their  speeches,  was 
not  their  strong  point. 

"  Are  we  to  do  it  double  forte  or  pianis- 
simo ?  "  asked  Reggie  of  the  conductor. 

"  I  presume  that  Doctor  Propert  has 
informed  Professor  Damien  of  the  alter- 
ations he  has  thought  fit  to  make  in  the 
music,"  he  remarked  bitterly. 

But  as  Doctor  Propert  was  already  em- 
ployed in  showing  Agamemnon,  who  was 
about  to  enter,  how  to  lean  against  a  door 


The  Rehearsal.  159 

in  the  attitude  of  a  Sophoclean  adult,  the 
sarcasm  fell  innocuous,  and  the  practice 
proceeded  fortissimo  without  further  in- 
terruption. 

Agamemnon  had  forgotten  his  first  line, 
and  at  Dr.  Propert's  suggestion  said 
"  Boble,  boble,  boble,"  until  he  remem- 
bered the  second  or  third  lines,  and  the 
chorus  grouped  themselves  round  the 
watchmen  and  smoked,  while  the  altar, 
relieved  of  its  localising  duties,  quarrelled 
with  the  other  unemployed  directors,  and 
prompted  Agamemnon  intermittently. 

But  as  the  scene  between  Agamemnon 
and  Clytemnestra  proceeded  and  the  Babe 
warmed  to  his  work,  other  conversation 
drooped  and  died.  He  found  it  bored 
him  simply  to  say  the  part,  and  through- 
out the  rehearsals,  even  when  he  had  to 
read  his  part,  he  acted  it  all.  But  at  this 
stage  in  rehearsal  he  knew  it  by  heart, 
and  in  looking  at  him  one  quite  forgot  his 
deerstalker  cap  and  long,  loud  ulster. 
The  stage  directors  were  reconciled  and 
murmured  approbation,  the  conductor 
ceased  talking  to  the  watchmen,  and  the 


160  The  Babe,  B.A. 

thing  began  to  take  shape.  Even  the 
subsequent  appearance  of  Mr.  Sykes,  who 
sat  down  in  the  middle  of  the  stage  and 
smiled  at  the  chorus,  caused  no  interrup- 
tion. He  fell  perfectly  flat,  and  no  one 
took  the  slightest  notice  of  him. 

Once  only  was  there  an  interruption, 
and  that  was  made  by  the  Babe  himself. 
Dr.  Propert  was  busy  hauling  a  metope 
on  to  the  stage,  and  letting  go  of  it  for  a 
moment,  it  fell  resonantly  onto  its  back. 
The  Babe  stopped  dead,  and  turned 
round. 

"If  you  make  such  a  horrible  row  again, 
while  I  'm  on,"  he  said,  "  you  may  take 
the  part  of  Clytemnestra  yourself.  I  shall 
begin  again,"  he  added  severely,  "at  the 
beginning  of  my  speech." 

The  conductor  could  have  embraced  the 
Babe  on  the  spot,  and  the  other  stage 
managers  giggled.  The  Babe  waited  till 
they  had  quite  finished,  and  then  began 
again  thirty-four  lines  back. 

The  truth  was  that  all  the  Babe's  flip- 
pancy and  foolishness  left  him  when  he 
was  acting,  and  only  then,  for  acting  was 


The  Rehearsal.  161 

the  one  thing  he  took  quite  seriously.  He 
ceased  to  be  himself,  for  he  threw  himself 
completely  into  the  character  he  was  im- 
personating. He  was  in  fact  not  an  ama- 
teur, but  an  actor,  and  these  two  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  one  another. 
If  a  man  has  dramatic  power,  he  may 
become  an  actor  with  training",  without  it 

O  ' 

he  cannot.  And  most  amateurs  have  not 
got  it. 

So  the  play  proceeded  with  vigour  till 
Clytemnestra  went  off  with  ./Egisthus, 
and  shortly  after  in  a  hansom  with  Mr. 
Sykes.  The  cold  drizzle  of  the  morning 
had  turned  to  snow,  and  the  melting  snow 
in  the  streets  looked  like  thin  coffee  ice. 
The  Babe  was  playing  in  a  college  match 
that  afternoon,  and  the  prospect  filled 
him  with  a  mild  despair. 


XII. — A  COLLEGE  SUNDAY. 

"  This  gloomy  tone,"  he  said,  "  is  far  too  rife  ; 
I  '11  demonstrate  the  loveliness  of  life."— HOTCH-POTCH  VBRSHS. 

REGGIE  and  Ealing  had  moved  into  a 
set  of  rooms  in  Fellows'  Buildings,  which 
they  shared  together.  The  set  consisted 
of  three  rooms,  two  inner  and  smaller 
ones,  and  one  large  room  looking  out  on 
to  the  front  court  of  King's.  The  two 
smaller  rooms  they  used  as  bedrooms,  but 
as  they  each  had  folding  Eton  beds,  by 
half-past  nine  or  so  every  morning,  pro- 
vided that  they  got  up  in  reasonable  time, 
they  were  converted  for  the  day  into 
sitting-rooms.  The  outer  room  was  fur- 
nished more  with  regard  to  what  furniture 
they  had,  than  what  furniture  it  required. 
Thus  there  were  two  pianos,  tuned  about 
a  quarter  of  a  tone  apart  from  each  other, 
two  grandfather's  clocks,  and  a  most  defi- 
cient supply  of  chairs.  "  However,"  as 
Reggie  said,  "  one  can  always  sit  on  the 
piano." 

Ealing's  powers  of  execution  on  the 
piano  were  limited.  He  could  play  hymn- 
162 


A  College  Sunday.  163 

tunes,  or  other  compositions,  where  the 
next  chord  to  the  one  he  was  engaged  on 
followed  as  a  corollary  from  it,  and  any- 
thing in  the  world  which  went  so  slowly 
as  to  enable  him  to  glance  from  the  music 
to  his  hands  between  each  chord,  however 
complicated  it  was,  provided  it  did  not 
contain  a  double  sharp,  which  he  always 
played  wrong.  He  could  also,  by  dint 
of  long  practice,  play  "  Father  O'Flynn  " 
and  the  first  verse  of  "Off  to  Philadelphia 
in  the  Morning "  ;  and  there  seemed  to 
be  no  reason  why,  with  industry,  he  should 
not  be  able  to  acquire  the  power  of  play- 
ing the  other  verses,  in  which  he  con- 
sidered the  chords  to  be  most  irregular 
and  unexpected,  deserting  the  air  at  the 
most  crucial  points.  Reggie,  however,  was 
far  more  accomplished.  He  had  got  past 
hymn-tunes.  The  Intermezzo  in  Cavaleria 
Rusticana — even  the  palpitating  part — 
was  from  force  of  repetition  mere  child's 
play  to  him,  and  he  aspired  to  the  slow 
movements  out  of  Beethoven's  Sonatas. 

The  hours   in  which  each  might  prac- 
tise, therefore,  demanded  careful  arrange- 


1 64  The  Babe,  B.A. 

ment.  College  regulations  forbade  the 
use  of  the  pianos  altogether  between  nine 
in  the  morning,  and  two  in  the  after- 
noon, since  it  was  popularly  supposed  by 
the  authorities  who  framed  this  rule— 
and  who  shall  say  them  nay — that  all 
undergraduates  worked  between  these 
hours,  and  that  the  sound  of  a  piano 
would  disturb  them.  Consequently,  Eal- 
ing  was  allowed  to  play  between  eight 
A.M.  and  nine  A.M.,  every  morning,  a  priv- 
ilege which  he  used  intermittently  dur- 
ing breakfast,  and  by  which  he  drove 
Reggie,  daily,  to  the  verge  of  insanity, 
and  Reggie  between  two  P.M.  and  three 
P.M.  Ealing  again  might  play  between 
three  and  five,  and  Reggie  from  five  to 
seven.  During  these  hours  the  tem- 
porary captain  of  the  pianos,  even  if  he 
did  not  wish  to  play  himself,  might  stop 
the  other  from  playing  except  with  the 
soft  pedal  down.  It  had  been  found  im- 
possible to  regulate  the  hours  after  dinner, 
and  they  often  played  simultaneously  on 
their  several  pianos,  and  produced  thereby 
very  curious  and  interesting  effects,  which 


A  College  Sunday.  165 

sounded  Wagnerian  at  a  sufficient  dis- 
tance. Finally,  the  use  of  the  piano  was 
totally  prohibited  by  common  consent  be- 
tween two  A.M.  and  eight  A.M. 

The  Babe,  like  mournful  CEnone,  "  hith- 
er came  at  noon  "  one  Sunday  morning. 
Chapel  at  King's  was  at  half-past  ten,  and 
that  English  habit  of  mind  which  weds 
indissolubly  together  Sunday  morning  and 
lying  in  bed,  was  responsible  for  the  fact 
that  on  Sunday  Reggie  and  Ealing  always 
breakfasted  after  chapel.  But  the  Babe, 
unlike  that  young  lady,  was  in  the  best  of 
spirits,  and  as  Ealing  and  Reggie  were 
not  yet  back  from  chapel,  made  tea  and  be- 
gan breakfast  without  them.  They  came 
in  a  few  minutes  later,  both  rather  cross. 

"  When  there  is  going  to  be  a  sermon," 
said  Reggie  severely,  taking  off  his  sur- 
plice, "  I  consider  that  I  have  a  right  to 
be  told.  Morning,  Babe." 

"Oh,  have  you  had  a  sermon  ?"  said 
the  Babe  sweetly.  "  Who  preached  ?" 

"  The  Dean.  He  preached  for  half-an- 
hour." 

"  More  than  half-an-hour,"  said  Ealing. 


1 66  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  Totally  inaudible,  of  course,  but  lengthy 
to  make  up  for  that." 

"  Pour  me  out  some  tea,  Babe,  if  you  Ve 
had  the  sense  to  make  it." 

"  Sermons  are  trying  if  one  has  n't 
breakfasted,"  said  the  Babe.  "  They  are 
sermons  in  stones  when  one  asks  for 
bread." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?" 

"  I  have  n't  the  slightest  idea.  I  hoped 
that  perhaps  one  of  you  would  know. 
Why  should  I  know  what  I  mean  ?  It 's 
other  people's  business  to  find  out.  And 
they  for  the  most  part  neglect  it  shame- 
fully." 

"  Shut  up,  Babe,"  growled  Reggie.  "  I 
wish  you  would  n't  talk  when  I  'm  eating." 

"Can't  you  hear  yourself  eat?"  asked 
the  Babe  sympathetically. 

"  Wild  horses  shall  not  drag  me  to 
Chapel  this  afternoon,"  said  Ealing. 
"  We  '11  go  for  a  walk,  Reggie." 

"  I  daresay  :  at  present  I  can't  think  of 
anything  but  food.  Babe,  you  greedy 
hog,  give  me  some  fish." 

"  And    very  good  fish  it  is,"   said    the 


A  College  Sunday.  167 

Babe  genially.  "  By  the  way,  Sykes  is 
far  from  well  this  morning." 

"  What 's  the  matter  with  him  ?  " 

"He  partook  too  freely  of  the  ancho- 
vies of  the  Chitchat  last  night.  You  will 
find  that  in  French  conversation  books." 

"  I  saw  him  indulging  as  I  thought 
unwisely,"  said  Ealing.  "  Then  it  was 
surely  imprudent  of  him  to  drink  Moselle 
cup." 

"  He  wished  to  drown  care,  but  it  only 
gave  him  a  stomach-ache.  Stewart  im- 
pressed him  so  with  the  fact  that  we  were 
all  Atlases  with  the  burden  of  the  world 
on  our  shoulders,  that  he  had  recourse 
to  the  cup." 

"And  the  burden  of  us  all  was  on 
Stewart." 

"Yes.  Don't  you  remember  he  said 
that  he  felt  personally  responsible  for 
every  undergraduate  whom  he  had  ever 
spoken  to  ?  His  idea  is  that  each  don 
ought  to  have  an  unlimited  influence, 
and  that  the  whole  future  of  England 
in  the  next  generation  lay  on  each  of 
them,  particularly  himself.  No  wonder 


1 68  The  Babe,  B.A. 

his  eyelids  were  a  little  weary,  as  Mr. 
Pater  says.  But  after  you  went  he  took 
the  other  side,  and  said  that  the  under- 
graduates were  the  raison  d'etre  of  the 
University,  and  that  the  dons  existed 
only  by  their  sufferance." 

"  Did  Longridge  stop?" 

"  Yes.  He  was  a  little  less  coherent 
than  usual.  I  know  he  took  the  case  of 
a  man  at  Oxford  who  threw  stones  at  the 
deer  in  Magdalen,  though  what  conclu- 
sion he  drew  from  it,  I  can't  say." 

"  Probaby  that  the  deer  were  really 
responsible  for  the  undergraduates." 

The  Babe  sighed. 

"  I  have  to  read  a  paper  next  week.  I 
think  it  shall  be  on  some  aspects  of  Long- 
ridge.  That  is  sure  to  give  rise  to  a  dis- 
cussion if  he  is  there.  Give  me  a  cigar- 
ette, Reggie." 

The  Babe  established  himself  in  a  big 
chair  by  the  fireplace,  while  the  others 
finished  breakfast. 

"  I  am  going  to  found  a  club,"  he  said, 
"  called  the  S.  C.  D.  or  Society  for  the 
Cultivation  of  Dons.  Stewart  says  he 


A  College  Sunday.  169 

will  be  vice-president,  as  he  does  n't  con- 
sider himself  a  don.  We  are  going  to 
call  on  obscure  dons  every  afternoon  and 
speak  to  them  of  the  loveliness  of  life, 
for,  as  Stewart  says,  the  majority  of 
them  have  no  conception  of  it.  Their 
lives  are  bounded  by  narrow  horizons, 
and  the  only  glimpse  they  catch  of  the 
great  world,  is  their  bedmaker  as  she 
carries  out  their  slop-pail  from  their  bed- 
rooms. They  live  like  the  Niebelungs 
in  dark  holes  and  eat  roots,  and  though 
they  are  merely  animals,  they  have  no 
animal  spirits.  He  says  he  knew  a  don 
once  who  by  a  sort  of  process  of  spon- 
taneous combustion,  became  a  dictionary, 
but  all  the  interesting  words,  the  sort  of 
words  one  looks  out  in  a  Bible  dictionary, 
you  know,  were  missing.  So  they  used 
him  to  light  fires  with,  for  which  he  was 
admirably  adapted,  being  very  dry,  and 
in  the  manner  of  King  Alexander,  who, 
as  Stewart  asserted  became  the  bung  in 
a  wine  cork,  other  dons  now  warm  them- 
selves at  him.  Stewart  was  very  enter- 
taining last  night,  and  rather  improper. 


1 70  The  Babe,  B.A. 

He  said  that  a  Don  Juan  or  two  was 
wanted  among  the  dons,  by  way  of  com- 
pensation, and  he  enlarged  on  the  sub- 
ject." 

"  Give  us  his  enlargements." 

"  I  can't.  He  enlarged  in  a  way  that 
belongs  to  the  hour  after  midnight  on 
Saturday,  when  you  know  that  when  you 
wake  up  it  will  be  Sunday.  He  was  very 
Saturday-night.  He  called  it  working  off 
the  arrears  of  the  week,  and  complained 
that  he  had  n't  heard  a  mouth-filling  oath 
for  more  than  a  month.  He  never  swears 
himself,  but  he  likes  to  hear  other  people 
do  it ;  for  he  says  he  is  in  a  morbid  terror 
of  the  millennium  beginning  without  his 
knowing  it.  He  skipped  about  in  short 
skirted  epigrams,  and  pink-tight  phrases. 
At  least  that  was  his  account  of  his  own 
conversation  when  we  parted.  Oh  yes, 
and  he  said  he  did  n't  mind  saying  these 
things  to  me  because  I  was  a  man  of  the 
world." 

"He  knows  your  weak  points,  Babe," 
said  Reggie. 

"  Not  at  all.  He  referred  to  that  as  my 
strong  point." 


A  College  Sunday.  171 

"  Good  old  Clytemnestra  !  I  'm  better 
now,  thank  you,  after  my  breakfast,  and 
it 's  '  The  Sorrows  of  Death  '  this  after- 
noon. I  shall  go  to  chapel  again." 

Reggie  lit  a  pipe,  and  picked  out  the 
first  few  bars  on  the  piano. 

"  The  watchman  was  a  tiresome  sort  of 
man  to  have  about,"  he  said.  "  When  they 
asked  him  if  it  was  nearly  morning,  he  only 
said,  '  Though  the  morning  will  come,  the 
night  will  come  also.'  Of  course  they  knew 
that  already,  and  besides  it  was  n't  the 
question.  I  should  have  dismissed  him  on 
the  spot.  So  the  soprano  has  to  tell  them, 
which  he  does  on  the  top  A  mainly." 

"  When  I  was  a  child  I  could  sing  the 
upper  upper  Z,"  said  the  Babe  fatuously. 
"Then  my  voice  broke,  and  the  moral  is 
'  Deeper  and  deeper  yet.'  Don't  rag : 
I  apologise." 

Ealing  finished  breakfast  last,  and 
strolled  across  to  the  window. 

"It's  a  heavenly  morning,"  he  said. 
"  Let's  go  out.  We  need  n't  go  far." 

"  I  will  walk  no  further  than  the  King's 
field,"  said  the  Babe. 

"  Very  well,  and  we  can  sit  outside  the 


i;2  The  Babe,  B.A. 

pavilion.  I  'm  lunching  out  at  half-past 
one." 

"  Meals  do  run  together  so  on  Sunday. 
Sunday  is  really  one  long  attack  of  con- 
fluent mastication,"  said  the  Babe.  "  It's 
a  pity  one  can't  take  them  simultaneously." 

Though  November  had  already  begun, 
the  air  was  deliciously  warm  and  mild, 
and  had  it  not  been  for  the  fast  yellowing 
trees,  one  would  have  guessed  it  to  be 
May.  But  there  was  a  shouting  wind 
overhead,  which  stripped  off  the  leaves 
by  hundreds  and  blew  the  rooks  about  the 
sky.  Already  the  tops  of  the  trees  were 
bare,  and  the  nests  of  last  spring  swung 
empty  and  half  ruined  high  up  among  the 
forks  of  the  branches.  During  the  last 
week  a  good  deal  of  rain  had  fallen,  and 
the  Cam  was  swirling  down,  yellow  and 
turbid.  The  willow  by  the  river  was 
already  quite  bare,  and  its  thin  feathery 
branches  lashed  themselves  against  the 
stone  coping  of  the  bridge. 

They  went  through  the  Fellows'  gar- 
dens, for  Reggie  by  some  means  had  got 
hold  of  a  key  ;  there  a  few  bushes  of  drag- 


A  College  Sunday.  173 

gled  Michaelmas  daisies  were  making  pre- 
tence that  the  summer  was  not  quite  dead 
yet,  but  they  only  succeeded  in  calling 
attention  to  the  long,  desolate  beds.  The- 
grass  was  growing  rank  and  matted  under 
the  Autumn  rains,  and  little  eddies  of  leaves 
had  drifted  up  against  the  wires  of  the 
disused  croquet-hoops.  But  the  day  itself 
seemed  stolen  from  off  the  lap  of  spring, 
and  two  thrushes  were  singing  in  the 
bushes  after  an  excellent  breakfast  of  suc- 
culent worms. 

"  We  play  you  to-morrow  at  Rugger," 
remarked  the  Babe  as  they  walked  across 
the  field,  "  and  we  play  on  this  ground. 
It's  sticky  enough,  and  I  shall  vex  the 
soul  of  the  half  opposite  me,  because  I 
like  a  sticky  ground,  and  he  is  certain  not 
to.  In  fact,"  said  he  confidently,  "  I  pur- 
pose to  get  two  tries  off  my  own  bat,  and 
generally  to  sit  on  this  royal  and  ancient 
foundation." 

"  The  Babe  has  never  yet  been  called 
modest,"  said  Ealing. 

"  If  I  have,  I  am  not  aware  of  it,"  said 
the  Babe. 


174  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  We  Ve  got  three  blues,"  remarked 
Reggie. 

"  I  am  delighted  to  hear  it,"  said  the 
Babe.  "  You  will  need  them  all.  And 
you  may  tell  our  mutual  friend  Hargreave 
that  if  he  attempts  to  collar  me  round  the 
ancles  again,  I  shall  make  no  efforts  what- 
ever to  avoid  kicking  him  in  the  face. 
He  did  it  last  time  we  played  you,  and  I 
spoke  to  him  about  it  more  in  sorrow 
than  in  anger." 

"  Upon  which  the  referee  warned  you 
for  using  sorrowful  language." 

"  He  did  take  that  liberty,"  conceded 
the  Babe.  "  Let 's  sit  down  outside  the 
pavilion.  I  wish  we  could  kick  about. 
The  Sabbath  is  made  for  man,  and  so  is, 
Sunday,  and  so  are  footballs." 

"  But  on  Sunday  the  pavilion  is  locked 
up  by  man,  and  the  footballs  put  inside." 

"  It  appears  so.  English  people  take 
Sunday  too  seriously,  just  as  they  take 
everything  else,  except  me." 

"  Anyhow,  Stewart  says  you  are  a  man 
of  the  world,"  said  Ealing. 

"  He    does,  and  who    are  we   to  con- 


A  College  Sunday.  175 

tradict  him  ?  Good  Lord,  there  's  one 
o'clock  striking.  I  must  go  home. 
There 's  somebody  coming  to  lunch  at 
half-past.  Reggie,  get  me  a  ticket  for 
King's  this  afternoon,  will  you  ?  " 


XIII. — KING'S  CHAPEL. 


Music,  when  soft  voices  die, 
Vibrates  in  the  memory. 

SHELLEY. 


REGGIE  and  the  Babe  got  into  chapel 
just  after  the  voluntary  had  begun,  and 
slow  soft  notes  came  floating  drowsily 
down  from  the  echoes  in  the  roof.  The 
chapel  and  ante-chapel  were  both  full,  and 
from  the  door  in  the  dim,  mellow  half- 
darkness,  a  sea  of  heads  stretched  up  to 
the  black  wooden  screen,  through  which 
streamed  the  light  from  the  chapel  itself. 
In  the  roof  one  could  just  see  the  delicate 
fan-shaped  lines  of  vaulting  springing 
across  like  lotus  leaves  from  wall  to  wall, 
and  the  windows  on  the  south  side 
gleamed  with  dark,  rich  colour  from  the 
sky  already  turning  red  with  the  south- 
western setting  sun.  As  they  went  up 
the  ante-chapel  the  Babe  saw  a  seat  still 
unoccupied,  and  preferred  stopping  there 
to  going  into  the  chapel. 
175 


King's  Chapel.  177 

Reggie's  seat  was  just  east  of  the  choir 
opposite  to  the  window  representing 
Christ  standing  in  the  garden  after  the 
resurrection.  To  the  right  kneels  Mary 
Magdalene  gaudily  dressed,  just  having 
turned  and  seeing  that  he  was  not,  as  she 
supposed,  only  the  gardener.  To  the  left 
rises  a  green  hill,  on  the  top  of  which, 
below  a  row  of  brown,  ragged  rocks, 
stands  the  empty  tomb,  with  the  women 
round  it.  By  a  quaint  but  curiously  felic- 
itous idea  of  the  artist,  the  figure  of 
Christ  is  holding  a  spade  in  his  hand,  as 
if  to  give  colour  to  Mary's  mistake.  His 
face  is  Divine,  but  graciously  human,  and 
he  waits  for  the  recognition. 

The  whole  place  had  an  air  of  tranquil 
repose,  of  remoteness  from  worldliness, 
hurry,  and  unprofitable  strivings  that  per- 
haps has  a  certain  value,  which  is  not 
necessarily  diminished  because  it  is  im- 
possible to  account  for  it  statistically  or 
categorically.  There  is  something  in 
spacious  grey  buildings  and  perfect  Gothic 
architecture,  shared  too  by  broad  grass 
lawns  and  studious,  quiet  places  and 


i;8  The  Babe,  B.A. 

uneventful  lives,  that  cannot  be  altogether 
left  out  of  the  reckoning  when  one  adds 
up  the  total  value  of  a  University  as  com- 
pared with  a  modern  endowed  plan  of 
education,  or  the  admirable  schemes  of 
University  extension. 

And  the  choir  which  walked  slowly  up 
the  aisle  into  their  places,  though  com- 
posed of  ordinary  little  boys,  lay  clerks, 
and  undergraduates,  somehow  brought 
themselves  into  harmony  with  it.  On 
week  days  the  little  boys  no  doubt  were 
entirely  human,  and  probably  concealed 
surreptitious  sweet  stuff  in  their  pockets  ; 
the  lay  clerks  wore  bowler  hats  and  tail 
coats,  and  belonged  to  the  most  unpre- 
possessing class  which  England  produces, 
and  the  undergraduates  were  only  under- 
graduates. But  for  the  time  they  were 
part  of  a  wonderful  idea,  and  were  per- 
forming the  office  set  apart  for  them  by  a 
royal  founder. 

The  last  echo  from  the  roof  died  away, 
and  the  service  began,  and  though  Reggie 
was  not  conscious  of  attending  very 
closely  to  it,  he  was  still  aware  of  the 


King's  Chapel.  179 

good  and  kindly  atmosphere  about  him, 
an  atmosphere  which  soothed  and  quieted, 
and  drove  the  thoughts  inward.  He  had 
often  felt  it  before,  on  other  winter  after- 
noons in  chapel,  and  as  far  as  he  knew, 
for  he  did  not  consciously  think  about  it, 
it  had  made  no  difference  to  him.  But  as 
no  impression  is  without  its  effects,  we  must 
presume  that  it  had  made  a  difference  to 
him,  though  he  had  not  been  aware  of  it. 
Not  long  before,  the  organ  had  been 
repaired,  and  in  great  part  renewed,  and 
it  was  worthy  of  its  surroundings  and  its 
appearance.  Golden  sheaves  of  pipes 
gleamed  out  between  the  dark  wooden 
case,  and  on  top  of  the  two  turrets  look- 
ing west,  stood  two  great  angels  with 
brazen  trumpets  to  their  mouths,  and 
when  the  "tuba"  speaks,  one  cannot  help 
imagining  that  it  is  their  trumpets  which 
are  sounding.  To-day  "  The  Lord  thun- 
dered out  of  heaven,"  and  one  could  think 
that  the  air  for  a  moment  grew  thick  with 
sound,  which  increased  till  it  shattered 
the  growing  darkness,  splitting  it  with 
lightning  made  audible. 


i8o  The  Babe,  B.A. 

By  the  end  of  the  Psalms  it  had  grown 
quite  dark  outside,  and  the  windows 
showed  black  between  the  delicate  tracery. 
From  the  lectern  came  the  story  of  Neb- 
uchadnezzar's dream,  "of  the  watcher  and 
the  Holy  One,"  and  afterwards  of  the 
Holy  One  who  watched  alone  among  the 
olives  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  a 
king,  not  of  Babylon,  but  of  the  whole 
earth,  who  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head. 

The  stalls  and  sub-stalls  were  all  full 
of  members  of  the  college,  in  surplices, 
but  the  black  crowd  beyond  stretched  up 
to  the  steps  of  the  altar,  and  when  the 
three  bars  of  introduction  to  the  solo 
began,  every  one  stood  up.  Mendelssohn, 
so  often  only  correct,  so  often  ruined  by 
his  fatal  prettiness,  has  here  struck  the 
right  note,  full  and  firm.  Even  Reggie 
ceased  to  think  of  the  evasiveness  of  the 
watchman,  and  only  listened,  till  the  re- 
peated call  of  the  minor  died  away  into  a 
long  pause  before  the  soprano  answered, 
and  the  choir  took  up  the  full  chorus. 

Outside  in  the  ante-chapel,  though  only 
for  a  little  while,  the  Babe  ceased  from  his 


King's  Chapel.  181 

customary  futility  of  thought,  and  the 
slow  opening  of  the  carved  wooden  doors 
in  the  screen,  and  the  drawing  of  the 
crimson  curtain,  at  the  end  of  service,  still 
found  him  meditative. 

As  the  choir  came  out,  framed  in  a  long 
shaft  of  light,  the  organ  was  played  quietly, 
and  then  paused  for  a  moment,  while  a 
great  pedal  note  made  the  air  shake  and 
quiver  in  sensation  rather  than  sound. 
Then  the  full  organ  burst  out  with  the 
Occasional  Overture,  as  the  congregation 
from  the  chapel  streamed  out  after  the 
members  of  the  college.  The  first  move- 
ment marched,  and  marching  marshalled 
whole  armies  of  sound,  which  stood  wait- 
ing while  the  second  rippled  and  laughed 
and  sang  with  all  the  breezes  of  heaven 
behind  it,  and  the  third  dwelt  dreamily 
on  what  had  gone,  and  thought  of  what 
was  to  come. 

Then  in  the  last  movement,  battalion 
after  battalion  of  major  chords,  from  choir 
and  swell  and  great  organ,  grew  and  multi- 
plied in  all  their  forces,  the  flutes  and  pic- 
colos, the  twelfths  and  fifteenths  as  flying 


1 82  The  Babe,  B.A. 

squadrons  on  the  wings,  and  the  diapasons 
the  lords  of  sound  in  the  centre,  an  ex- 
ceeding great  army.  Then  at  the  second 
repeat  the  "  tuba  "  woke  in  the  "  huge 
house  of  sounds,"  and  the  thing  was 
complete,  a  fixed  star  for  ever  in  the 
heavens  of  harmony. 


XIV. — A  VARIETY  ENTERTAINMENT. 


In  truth 
I  know  of  noone  so  adaptable. 

OLD  PLAY. 


THAT  evening  the  Babe  dined  as  a 
guest  with  the  T.  A.  F.  (which  means 
Twice  A  Fortnight,  and  is  a  synonym  for 
O.  A.  W.  or  Once  A  Week,  and  implies 
a  frankly  purposeless  and  purely  social 
club  consisting  of  about  a  dozen  members, 
chiefly  undergraduates,  who  dined  to- 
gether every  Sunday  night)  and  spent  a 
pleasant  evening  of  innocent  mirth  and  a 
little  music.  After  dinner  one  member 
sang  some  Scotch  songs  in  a  baritone 
voice,  another  played  the  Pilgrim's  March 
in  Tannhduser  exceedingly  badly,  omit- 
ting the  Venus  motif,  but  repeating  the 
Chorus  in  a  palpitating  manner  in  the 
higher  octave,  to  make  up  for  it,  and  two 
others  recalled  to  their  minds  the  Occa- 
sional Overture  which  had  been  played 
in  chapel  that  afternoon.  A  fifth  imitated 
183 


1 84  The  Babe,  B.A. 

in  the  most  natural  and  life-like  manner 
the  speech  and  manners  of  a  don  of  the 
college,  three  or  four  read  books  gloomily 
in  corners,  being  of  a  more  serious  turn 
of  mind,  and  the  wilder  section  of  the 
party  pressed  the  Babe  to  give  them  a 
little  skirt-dancing,  which  he  very  properly 
refused  to  do,  feeling  justly  enough  that  it 
would  not  be  in  keeping  with  the  general 
character  of  the  proceedings.  Later  he 
very  unwisely  offered  to  play  picquet  with 
anybody,  a  proposition  which  was  received 
in  awkward  silence,  and  hurriedly  covered 
with  a  buzz  of  conversation.  Another 
guest,  however,  contributed  to  the  har- 
mony of  the  evening  by  describing  at 
great  length,  the  state  of  the  lower  classes 
in  Russia,  Germany,  Austria,  and  Turkey 
in  Asia,  with  realistic  and  revolting  de- 
tails. By  degrees  the  other  members  of  the 
party  left  their  books  and  their  music,  and 
sat  round  him  in  enthusiastic  silence. 
For  so  stirring  a  man,  so  thought  the 
Babe,  there  was  no  excuse  and  no  hope, 
for  he  was  not  less  than  thirty  years  old, 
and  should  have  known  better.  Then  he 


A  Variety  Entertainment.      185 

reverted,  also  at  length,  to  the  vastly 
superior  conditions  of  our  own  agricultural 
labourers  and  proceeded,  still  monologis- 
ing, by  easy  transitions,  to  the  prospect 
of  an  European  war.  On  this  point  his 
prophecies  were  most  patriotic,  and  went 
perfectly  to  the  tune  of  "  Rule  Britannia," 
and  so  afforded  everyone  present  the 
greatest  satisfaction  when  they  reflected 
that  they  were  Englishmen.  Metaphori- 
cally speaking  he  slapped  them  on  the 
back,  and  filled  them  full  of  roast  beef 
and  racial  admiration.  All  his  sentiments 
were  worthy  of  the  highest  praise,  and  it 
may  only  have  been  the  personality  of 
the  speaker  that  inspired  the  Babe  with 
such  speechless  horror.  He  was  just 
describing  the  apparatus  for  shooting  tor- 
pedoes from  submerged  tubes  on  the 
Majestic,  which,  in  some  obscure  manner 
the  passport  of  Prince  Niktivoffski,  which 
he  happened  to  have  about  him,  had 
enabled  him  to  inspect,  and  was  saying  that 
no  other  nation  had  got  anything  of  the 
kind  and  that  they  would  blow  all  other 
navies  of  the  world  into  a  million  of  atoms 


1 86  The  Babe,  B.A. 

in  a  moment  of  time,  when  the  breaking 
point  came  for  the  Babe,  and  he  rose  and 
said  good-night. 

He  had  not  got  more  than  half  way 
across  the  court,  when  he  heard  other 
sounds  of  revelry  from  some  rooms  on  the 
right,  belonging  as  he  knew  to  a  don  of 
his  acquaintance,  who  was  widely  and 
justly  famed  for  his  Sunday  evenings  at 
home,  and  the  pleasure-seeking  Babe 
determined  to  go  in  for  a  few  minutes,  for 
like  the  rest  of  the  University,  he  had  a 
standing  invitation  to  come  as  often  as 
he  could.  He  found  himself  in  a  luxuri- 
ously furnished  room,  quite  full  of  people 
and  of  mixed  tobacco  smoke.  His  host 
greeted  him  effusively,  and  gave  him  to 
understand  that  his  cup  of  happiness  was 
now  quite  full. 

The  gathering  was  meant  to  be,  and 
succeeded  in  being,  altogether  heteroge- 
neous, and  though  eminently  respectable, 
had  a  curious  but  unmistakable  flavour 
of  ultra-Bohemianism  about  it.  Mr.  Swot- 
cham  was  sitting  on  the  sofa  near  the  fire 
talking  excitedly  to  two  shaggy  individu- 


A  Variety  Entertainment.      187 

als,  whom  the  Babe  rightly  guessed  to  be 
members  of  the  club,  which  he  had  libel- 
lously  informed  the  world  was  the  modern 
representative  of  the  Hell-fire  Club  of 
Medmenham  Abbey.  He  smiled  benig- 
nantly  at  Swotcham,  and  as  he  turned  away 
caught  the  words  "  standpoint  of  deter- 
minism." He  had  not  the  slightest  idea 
what  they  meant,  but  they  sounded  bad. 
By  the  table,  nibbling  biscuits  and  helping 
themselves  to  tea  out  of  a  brass  Russian 
samovar,  were  standing  three  little  men, 
with  little  moustaches,  talking  earnestly 
together,  whose  only  characteristic  seemed 
to  be  entire  ineffectiveness.  Further  on 
a  highly-coloured  Italian  was  expressing 
fervid  thoughts  in  bad  English,  to  two 
young  gentlemen  who  wore  their  hair  in 
a  great  frizzled  tuft  over  their  foreheads. 
This  latter  type  was  familiar  to  the  Babe, 
and  afforded  him  almost  infinite  delight ; 
it  went  to  the  stalls  in  the  theatre, 
where,  dressed  in  Norfolk  jackets,  it 
talked  together  in  dark  allusiveness  of 
music-hall  artistes.  It  might  also  be  seen 
in  the  streets,  in  a  very  short  and  ragged 


1 88  The  Babe,  B.A. 

gown,  a  broken-backed  cap  with  the  card- 
board showing  at  the  edges,  not  the  result 
of  age,  but  of  fell  and  evil  design,  smok- 
ing pipes.  It  gave  the  world  to  under- 
stand that  it  was  the  very  devil  of  a  type, 
but  the  world,  with  a  charity  that  is  rare, 
considered  that  though  odious,  it  was  not 
morally  so  black  as  its  self-depreciation  led 
it  to  paint  itself. 

Arundel  prints  hung  on  the  walls,  and 
somehow  looked  as  incongruous  there  as 
Mrs.  Chant  at  a  music-hall,  for  the  whole 
atmosphere  was  quite  extraordinarily  secu- 
lar. Against  the  wall  stood  three  or  four 
large  bookcases,  on  the  top  of  which 
were  arranged  several  admirable  repro- 
ductions of  antique  bronzes  and  marbles. 
In  one  corner  on  the  top  of  a  scagliola 
pedestal  stood  the  bust  of  the  young 
Augustus  in  marble,  and  close  to  him  a 
bronze  Narcissus  leaned  and  held  up  a 
listening  finger.  On  each  side  of  the 
clock  on  the  mantel-piece  was  a  nude 
figure  of  a  youth  in  bronze,  and  Botti- 
celli's Madonna  of  the  Magnificat  looked 
down  at  them  in  mild  surprise  and  seemed 


A  Variety  Entertainment      189 

to  be  wondering  to  what  sort  of  a  place 
she  had  come.  From  a  door  on  the  right 
came  the  sounds  of  the  slow  movement 
of  Beethoven's  Sonata  Pathetique,  ar- 
ranged not  as  the  composer  mean  it  to  be 
played,  but  for  a  'cello,  a  violin  and  a 
piano ;  the  piano  was  a  little  ahead,  but 
the  violin  and  'cello  which  were  running 
neck  to  neck,  caught  up  to  it  in  the  scherzo 
that  followed,  and  they  all  finished  up 
amid  indescribable  indifference  on  the  part 
of  all  present,  a  dead  heat.  Everyone 
talked  loudly  during  the  performance,  and 
took  not  the  slightest  notice  when  it  was 
over,  with  the  exception  of  the  genial 
host,  who  patted  all  three  executants  on 
the  back  and  said  "  Awfully  jolly,  Charlie," 
to  the  'cellist.  The  duty  of  a  good  host, 
without  doubt,  is  to  make  everybody  talk, 
and  certainly  the  musicians  and  Mr. 
Waddilove  between  them  succeeded  to 
admiration.  The  latter  was  as  ubiquitous 
and  as  deft  as  Mr.  Maskelyne's  hands 
when  he  is  spinning  plates,  now  giving 
a  touch  to  the  discussion  on  the  stand- 
point of  determinism,  now  spurring 


190  The  Babe,  B.A. 

Italian  on  to  fresh  deeds  of  violence  tow- 
ards the  Queen's  English,  now  telling  the 
Babe  how  he  too,  in  his  earlier  years,  once 
acted  Clytemnestra  with  unparalleled  suc- 
cess, and  now  persuading  Charlie  to  give 
him  another  taste  of  his  'cello.  In  fact, 
the  only  group  he  did  not  speak  to  was 
that  of  the  three  earnest  biscuit-nibblers, 
who  had  been  joined  by  a  fourth,  and  who 
appeared  to  be  of  no  consequence  what- 
ever, as  indeed  they  were  not. 

Beyond  the  room  where  the  music  was 
going  on,  lay  another  smaller  one,  entirely 
lined  with  bookcases  from  floor  to  ceiling. 
In  one  corner  stood  a  screen,  and  the  Babe 
having  the  curiosity  to  peep  over  it,  saw 
behind,  Mr.  Waddilove's  bed,  presided 
over  by  a  bronze  reproduction  of  the 
head  of  "  Sleep  "  from  the  British  Museum. 
On  the  table  stood  a  liqueur  decanter 
containing  a  pale  pink  fluid  of  which  the 
Babe  took  a  glass.  It  reminded  him 
vaguely  of  almonds  and  orange  peel  dis- 
solved in  cherry  blossom  scent,  and  Mr. 
Waddilove  entering  at  the  moment  told 
him  it  was  made  exclusively  on  the  estate 


A  Variety  Entertainment.      191 

of  Count  Zamboletto  near  Taormina  in 
Sicily,  where  he  himself  had  often  stayed. 

Fresh  arrivals  kept  streaming  in  ;  among 
them  two  or  three  members  of  the  T.A.F., 
who  wandered  about  looking  as  if  they  did 
not  know  why  they  had  come,  including 
the  performer  of  the  overture  to  Tann- 
hauser,  who  sat  down  at  the  piano,  with- 
out being  asked,  and  did  it  again.  He 
appeared  to  rouse  little  or  no  enthusiasm, 
and  left  immediately  afterwards. 

In  the  music-room  the  President  of  the 
Union  had  got  hold  of  Mr.  Waddilove  for 
a  moment,  and  was  discussing  the  sani- 
tary arrangements  of  the  Union  with 
him,  and  particularly  whether  it  was  pos- 
sible to  stop  the  thefts  of  nail-scissors 
which  went  on  so  extensively  in  the  lava- 
tory, and  which  for  no  explicable  reason, 
he  was  inclined  to  hold  the  Indians  respon- 
sible for.  He  thought  that  perhaps  they 
collected  them,  in  order  to  barter  with 
them  among  savage  tribes  when  they  went 
home.  Mr.  Waddilove  seemed  to  take 
but  a  faint  interest  in  these  petty  larce- 
nies, but  humourously  suggested  that 


19*  The  Babe,  B.A. 

they  should  employ  some  lady  bicyclists 
from  Slater's  detective  agency  to  see  if 
they  could  catch  the  thieves.  That  fail- 
ing, he  suggested  that  they  should  try 
chaining  the  scissors  to  the  table  or  to 
the  looking-glass,  after  the  manner  of 
Bibles  in  old  churches.  Close  beside  them 
stood  the  Senior  Wrangler  of  the  last 
year,  talking  Psychical  Research  with  the 
sub-organist  of  Trinity.  An  archdeacon, 
who  looked  like  a  sheep  that  had  gone 
very  badly  astray,  was  turning  over  the 
pages  of  Max  Nordau's  Degeneration,  and 
close  to  him  an  undergraduate,  with  eye- 
brows meeting  over  his  nose  and  the 
face  of  a  truculent  rabbit,  was  demon- 
strating the  absurdity  of  the  Christian 
Faith  to  two  frightened  Freshmen,  who 
seemed  willing  to  agree  to  anything  he 
might  suggest.  As  the  Babe  passed,  he 
heard  the  words  "so-called  Resurrection," 
and  his  smile  grew  a  shade  more  seraphic. 
The  Babe  wandered  back  to  the  outer 
room,  where  the  discussion  on  the  stand- 
point of  determinism  or  some  similar  sub- 
ject was  still  proceeding  shrilly.  Mr. 


A  Variety  Entertainment.      193 

Svvotcham  for  the  moment  had  the  ear 
of  the  house,  and  he  was  speaking  rap- 
idly and  excitedly  in  a  sort  of  cracked 
treble  voice,  .and  apparently  endeavour- 
ing to  tie  his  fingers  into  hard  knots. 
They  had  been  joined  by  three  more  dis- 
putants whom  the  Babe  conjectured  to 
be  in  the  running  for  the  Apostles,  for 
the  other  three  evidently  regarded  them 
as  promising  amateurs  rather  than  pro- 
fessionals. 

He  made  his  way  across  to  the  win- 
dow, where  he  saw  Mr.  Stewart  sitting 
with  a  somewhat  isolated  air. 

"This  is  a  very  interesting  sight, 
Babe,"  he  said,  "and  I  was  looking  out 
for  someone  to  whom  I  could  talk  about 
it.  I  feel  a  trifle  like  St.  Anthony  in  the 
desert,  with  all  sorts  of  half-understood 
temptations  beckoning  to  me.  On  one 
side  I  hear  the  siren  voice  of  philosophy 
calling  me  to  leave  the  world,  and  live  in 
the  realms  of  pure  theory  ;  on  the  other 
side  of  the  table  stand  three  joyous  Fresh- 
men in  the  heyday  of  youth  and  animal 
spirits  drinking  whisky  and  water,  and  a 


194  The  Babe,  B.A. 

fourth,  with  a  temerity  which  I  envy,  a 
curious  pink  liqueur ;  on  the  right  you 
may  observe  two  members  of  the  Foot- 
lights Club,  who  are  slaves,  so  they  tell 
each  other,  to  their  divine  mistress,  Art, 
to  whom  they  offer  sacrificial  burlesques 
twice  a  year.  An  archdeacon,  with  the 
face  of  a  mediaeval  saint  from  a  painted 
glass  window,  has  just  gone  through  into 
the  next  room,  where  he  will  hear  a  pupil 
of  mine  preaching  atheism — " 

"  I  heard  someone  just  now  allude  to 
the  'so-called  Resurrection.' ' 

"  The  chances  are  a  thousand  to  one 
that  that' was  he,"  said  Stewart.  "Just 
behind  you  an  Italian  is  singing  the  joys 
of  the  back  streets  of  Naples  to  two  tuft- 
haired  absurdities,  who  are  sighing  to  see 
a  little  'life.'  Meantime,  through  the  open 
door  I  can  hear  our  sub-organist  playing 
the  overture  to  Parsifal.  He  thinks  that 
if  he  goes  on  long  enough  and  plays  loud 
enough  the  conversation  will  get  a  little 
lower.  He  is  wrong.  The  louder  he 
plays,  the  louder  will  everybody  talk.  In 
fact  he  is  laying  up  for  them  all  a  store 


A  Variety  Entertainment.      195 

of  sore  throats  to-morrow  morning.  And 
our  host,  whose  moral  digestion  most 
surely  resembles  that  of  an  ostrich,  turns 
from  one  to  another,  and  is  appropriate 
to  all.  There  was  also  a  member  of  the 
Upper  House  here  just  now,  but  he  did 
not  stop.  He  had  mistaken  the  charac- 
ter of  the  entertainment  and  had  come  in 
evening  clothes  like  you,  but  unlike  you 
had  brought  his  wife  decolletee.  His 
entry  was  pompous,  his  exit  precipitous. 
As  for  you,  I  have  long  ceased  to  be  sur- 
prised at  anything  you  do.  But  do  tell 
me  why  you  are  here  ?  " 

The  Babe  looked  round  appreciatively. 

"  I  don't  know,  I  'm  sure.  I  came  here 
because  I  had  been  dining  at  the  T.  A.  F. 
in  King's." 

"  Ah,  purely  antidotal,"  said  Mr.  Stew- 
art. 

"  Not  consciously ;  and  I  stopped,  I 
suppose,  because  it  amused  me.  Surely 
that  is  a  very  good  reason." 

"  The  best  of  reasons,  my  dear  Babe. 
And  when  it  ceases  to  amuse  you,  you 
will  go  away,  and  I  will  come  with  you, 


196  The  Babe,  B.A. 

And  I  came  because  it  was  Sunday,  and 
here  one  can  shake  off  the  impression  that 
it  is  Sunday,  though  I  don't  know  why 
one  should  be  able  to  do  so  with  such 
conspicuous  success  as  one  does.  Some- 
how in  my  own  rooms  everything  looks 
different  on  Sunday  and  in  consequence 
they  are  hardly  habitable.  I  suppose  it  is 
the  influence  of  heredity  :  the  rooms  are 
accustomed  to  generations  of  dons  who 
always  wear  black  coats  on  Sundays,  and 
have  a  cold  lunch.  Ah,  here  is  the  arch- 
deacon. I  suppose  he  has  been  getting 
his  mind  out  of  its  Sunday  clothes  too. 
Archdeacons  are  venerable,  are  they  not  ? 
How  do  you  address  them,  'Your  Ven- 
eration' or  'Your  Venerance'?  Your 
uncle  is  a  Dean,  is  he  not,  Babe?  Don't 
you  know  ?" 

"  I  think  it 's  '  Your  Veneree,'  "  said 
the  Babe,  "  on  the  analogy  of  referee. 
Look,  he  's  talking  to  the  '  so-called  Resur- 
rection.' ' 

"Then  he  is  probably  learning  a  thing 
or  two,"  said  Mr.  Stewart.  "That  young 
man  never  comes  to  see  me  without  in- 


A  Variety  Entertainment.     197 

structing  me  on  the  whole  duty  of  a  tutor, 
which  appears  to  be,  to  do  what  one  in- 
tolerable undergraduate  tells  him.  For 
he  is  intolerable,  neither  more  nor  less. 
I  think  I  have  never  met  a  young  man 
who  inspired  me  with  a  more  searching 
abhorrence." 

The  Babe  looked  at  his  watch. 

"  I  suppose  I  shall  be  gated  if  I  don't 
go  back  to  Trinity  soon,"  he  said. 

"It  is  not  unlikely.  I  will  come  with 
you.  I  am  drunk  with  impressions,  and 
I  want  a  little  moral  soda-water.  As  we 
walk,  Babe,  you  shall  speak  to  me  of 
Rugby  football,  and  drop  kicks.  That  I 
hope  will  restore  my  equilibrium.  I  un- 
derstand now  why  you  play  football ; 
hitherto  it  has  been  a  mystery  to  me.  It 
must  be  very  calming  to  the  moral  nature. 
So  tell  me  what  a  Punt  is." 


XV. — CLYTEMNESTRISMOS. 


Thy  warrior  comes  in  regal  state, 

What  words  of  welcome  for  him,  wife  ? 

The  lips  of  love,  the  heart  of  hate, 
The  bath,  the  net,  the  knife. 

STORIES  OF  MVCKN.«. 


BETWEEN  his  own  tripos  work,  which 
he  stuck  to  steadily  and  grimly,  and  found 
by  mere  force  of  routine  less  disagreeable 
than  he  expected,  Rugby  football,  the 
storm  and  stress  of  social  duties,  as  he 
called  them — which  meant  dining  out  or 
having  people  to  dinner  five  nights  out  of 
the  seven — and  constant  rehearsals  for 
the  Greek  play,  the  Babe's  time  was  very 
fully  taken  up.  Furthermore,  on  Mr. 
Gladstone's  principle,  though  otherwise 
their  principles  had  nothing  in  common, 
he  always  slept  for  eight  and  a  half  hours 
every  night,  and  if,  as  often  happened,  he 
did  not  go  to  bed  till  two,  the  hours  of 
the  morning  were  somewhat  curtailed. 
The  Babe,  however,  did  not  object  to  this, 
as  the  morning  seemed  to  him  the  really 
disagreeable  part  of  the  day.  There  was 
198 


Clytemnestrismos.  199 

something  crude  and  raw  about  the  air 
until  lunch-time,  which  made  itself  felt, 
whatever  one  was  doing.  It  was  neces- 
sary of  course  to  get  through  the  morn- 
ing in  order  to  arrive  at  the  afternoon, 
but  the  shorter  it  was  made  the  better, 
and  by  breakfasting  late  and  lunching 
early  one  could  make  it  very  short  indeed. 
He  worked  at  the  Greek  play  with  ex- 
traordinary zeal  and  perseverance.  The 
happy  band  of  directors  had  begun  to  see 
that  he  knew  more  about  acting  than  all 
the  rest  of  them  put  together,  though  one 
had  seen  two  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
different  French  plays,  mostly  improper, 
and  the  Babe  was  present  throughout 
every  rehearsal,  sitting  in  the  stalls 
when  he  was  not  on  the  stage  himself, 
and  making  suggestions  whenever  they 
occurred  to  him.  Mr.  Mackay,  the  sec- 
ond stage  director,  had  very  strong  and 
original  ideas  on  the  subject  of  Cassan- 
dra, whom  he  made  his  special  care,  and 
he  had  mapped  out  exceedingly  carefully 
the  gestures,  tones,  postures,  and  faces 
she  was  to  make  as  the  prophetic  afflatus 


200  The  Babe,  B.A. 

gradually  gained  possession  over  her. 
She  was  a  tall  young  gentleman  with  a 
most  lovely  girlish  face,  and  about  as 
much  knowledge  of  the  dramatic  art  as 
of  the  lunar  theory.  But  Mackay  was 
indefatigable  in  coaching  her.  She  was  to 
point  down  with  both  hands  outstretched 
on  the  word  "  blood  "  ;  she  was  to  roll  her 
eyes  and  stare  at  the  centre  of  the  fourth 
row  of  stalls  at  the  word  "  Apollo  "  ;  she 
was  to  make  a  noise  in  her  throat  resem- 
bling gargling  on  the  second  "  Alas  "  ;  she 
was  to  stagger  on  the  third,  and  palpitate 
on  the  fourth.  She  was  to  gaze  with  ago- 
nised questioning  at  the  Ophicleide  when 
Clytemnestra  told  her  she  was  mad,  as  if 
to  ask  whether  he  too  agreed  with  her, 
and  breathe  as  if  she  had  just  come  to  the 
surface  after  a  prolonged  dive  ;  and  from 
that  point  onwards  she  was  to  cast  re- 
straint to  the  winds.  She  was  mad  ;  let 
the  audience  know  it.  Mad  people  were 
incoherent  and  throaty ;  what  she  said 
was  incoherent,  let  her  mode  of  saying 
it  be  as  throaty  as  possible.  She  must 
continually  gargle,  gurgle,  mule,  puke, 


Clytemnestrismos.  201 

croak,  creak,  hoop,  and  hawk,  and  if  then 
she  did  n't  bring  down  the  house,  well, — 
the  fault  was  not  hers. 

Cassandra,  who  at  any  rate  had  a  good 
memory,  and  did  blindly  what  she  was 
told  to  do,  had  just  been  through  her  part 
with  faultless  accuracy,  and  was  a  little 
hoarse  after  it,  and  no  wonder.  She  had 
screamed,  croaked,  gurgled,  gargled  with 
pitiless  precision,  and  on  the  last  word  she 
uttered,  her  voice,  by  an  entirely  unre- 
hearsed effort,  had  cracked  like  a  banjo 
string  in  a  hot  room.  Mackay  thought 
this  particularly  effective,  and  when  he 
heard  it  was  unpremeditated,  urged  her  to 
practise  it.  He  patted  her  on  the  back  as 
she  came  off,  and  implied  that  if  she  acted 
like  that  in  the  performances,  they  would 
be  very  helpful  to  yEschylus's  reputation. 
The  other  two  stage  directors,  it  is  true,  had 
intermittently  indulged  in  unkind  laugh- 
ter during  the  performance,  but  Cassan- 
dra had  not  heard  them,  and  if  she  had, 
she  would  not  have  cared. 

At  the  end  of  the  rehearsal  the  Babe 
stayed  behind  for  a  few  moments  to  see 


202  The  Babe,  B.A. 

about  his  dress,  and  passing  across  the 
stage  again  on  his  way  out,  found  the 
three  stage  directors  like  the  King,  the 
Queen,  and  the  Executioner  in  Alice  in 
Wonderland  in  hot  discussion.  Like  Alice, 
he  was  instantly  appealed  to  by  all  three, 
and  asked  to  give  his  opinion  about  Cas- 
sandra. 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  say  exactly  what 
I  think  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  By  all  means,"  said  Mackay,  confi- 
dently. 

The  Babe  hesitated  a  moment. 

"  I  have  n't  criticised  Cassandra  at  all," 
he  said,  "  because  I  understood  she  was, 
so  to  speak,  preserved.  Also  she  is  rather 
slow,  and  there  would  hardly  be  time  for 
her  to  learn  her  part  in  the  way  I  should 
suggest,  and  it  would  be  a  pity  to  confuse 
her  mind  farther.  But  if  you  ask  what  I 
think,  she  only  reminds  me  of  a  strong 
young  lady  battling  for  reason  against 
the  clutches  of  delirium  tremens." 

The  stage  director  who  had  seen  so 
many  French  plays,  smiled. 

"  I  said  drunk,"  he  said. 


Clytemnestrismos.  203 

"  Drunk,  certainly,  and  also  I  think  be- 
set by  the  black-beetle  visions,"  said  the 
Babe.  "  I  daresay  inspiration  by  Apollo 
may  be  like  that,  but  I  am  afraid  to  an 
English  audience  it  will  suggest  D.  T." 

"  I  thought  she  was  splendid  this  morn- 
ing," said  Mackay. 

"  Well,  I  've  told  you  what  I  think," 
said  the  Babe. 

"  What  do  you  advise  ?  " 

"  If  there  is  time,  I  should  advise  her 
to  remodel  herself  a  little.  Not  to  choke 
so  much  ;  she  spits  at  me  like  a  llama,  you 
know.  Not  to  be  so  inspired.  There  is 
too  much  saliva  in  her  madness,  I  think." 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  broke  in  Mackay, 
"  you  miss  the  whole  conception  of  the 
part.  She  is  mad,  stark,  staring  mad." 

"  I  daresay  I  'm  wrong,"  said  the  Babe. 

There  was  an  awkward  pause,  broken 
by  Mackay  who  picked  up  his  coat 
abruptly. 

"Very  well,"  said  he.  "Take  her  in 
hand  yourselves.  I  must  be  going.  We 
rehearse  again  at  five,  I  think." 

A  moment's  silence  followed  and  they 


204  The  Babe,  B.A. 

all  looked  at  each  other  with  the  air  of 
detected  conspirators. 

"  Will  you  help  us  ?"  asked  Dr.  Propert 
at  length  of  the  Babe. 

"  Do  you  mean,  will  I  coach  Cassandra  ?  " 

"Yes." 

The  Babe  hesitated. 

"  I  don't  want  to  interfere,"  he  said, 
"  but  certainly  there  is  room  for  improve- 
ment in  Cassandra.  And  I  don't  want 
Mackay  to  think  I  am  meddling  with 
him.  I  would  much  sooner  not." 

"  I  think  Mackay  wishes  it,"  said  Pro- 
pert,  "only  he  did  n't  like  saying  so." 

The  Babe  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  I  did  n't  gather  that  from  his  manner, 
but  if  you  can  assure  me  of  it,  I  will  do 
my  best  with  her." 

Dr.  Propert  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief. 

"Too  many  cooks  spoil  the  broth,"  he 
said  magnanimously.  "  We  have  too 
many  stage  directors.  We  all  of  us  really 
want  you  to  manage  the  whole  thing. 
Some  one  will  say  your  part  this  after- 
noon— I  will  myself — if  you  will  take  the 
rehearsal  alone.  Besides,  the  architecture 


Clytemnestrismos.  205 

of  the  palace  is  all  wrong,  and  I  have 
found  a  fifth  century  statue  with  sandals 
on.  There  is  a  cast  of  it  in  the  Museum, 
and  I  must  get  it  copied.  We  have  our 
hands  too  full." 

So  that  afternoon  Dr.  Propert  read  out 
Clytemnestra's  part,  and  the  two  other 
stage  directors  sat  meekly  in  corners,  and 
busied  themselves  with  sandals,  and  from 
the  centre  of  the  stalls  the  Babe  issued 
his  orders,  while  Dr.  Propert  read  his  part 
in  a  fine  sonorous  voice  and  in  a  modern 
Greek  accent,  which  made  the  Iambic 
lines,  so  said  Mackay,  who  had  made  a 
special  study  of  ancient  metres,  sound 
like  minor  Galliambics.  Cassandra  ex- 
hibited mild  surprise  when  the  Babe 
stopped  her  gurgling,  and  when  he  for- 
bade her  to  ogle  the  place  where  the 
Ophicleide  should  be,  she  felt  like  an 
unanchored  ship,  drifting  helplessly  about 
among  quicksands.  So  the  Babe  reserved 
her  for  private  instruction,  and  told  Aga- 
memnon not  to  go  like  Agag. 

There  was  only  a  fortnight  more  before 
the  performance,  and  the  Babe  worked 


206  The  Babe,  B.A. 

like  a  horse,  and  like  Hans  Miiller  made 
miracles.  The  casual  visitor  to  his  rooms 
was  likely  to  be  confronted  with  a  raging 
prophetess  or  a  credulous  king,  in  front 
of  whom  stood  the  Babe  showing  them 
how  to  rage  or  how  to  express  the  extremes 
of  credulity.  Dr.  Propert  found  enough 
to  do  in  superintending  the  stage  proper- 
ties and  the  second  stage  director  became 
a  sort  of  benignant  elderly  Mercury  to 
the  Babe.  Mackay  alone  held  slightly 
aloof. 

On  the  night  of  the  first  performance, 
there  was  a  thick,  palpable  atmosphere 
of  nerves  abroad,  like  a  London  fog. 
Agamemnon  kept  repeating  his  first  line 
over  and  over  again  and  wiping  his  hands 
on  his  himation,  and  tried  to  remember 
that,  whatever  he  did,  he  must  not  clear 
his  throat  before  he  began  to  speak.  The 
calm  and  prosy  Argive  elders  put  by  their 
prosiness  and  became  peppery  ;  Dr.  Pro- 
pert  flew  about  with  altar  wreaths  in  his 
hands,  which  he  deposited  carefully  in  safe 
places  and  then  forgot  where  he  had  put 
them,  Even  the  placid,  moon-faced  Cas- 


Clytemnestrismos.  207 

sandra  pricked  her  fingers  violently  with 
her  fifth-century  brooch.  As  for  the 
watchman  it  was  a  serious  matter  for 
doubt  whether  his  shaking  knees  would 
ever  take  him  safely  down  his  somewhat 
ricketty  watch-tower.  The  Babe  alone, 
on  whom  really  the  whole  responsibility 
as  well  as  the  heaviest  part  rested,  towered 
head  and  shoulders  above  the  nervous 
fog,  and  was  absolutely  his  own  silly  self. 
He  caught  up  Agamemnon  three  minutes 
before  the  curtain  was  to  rise  and  tried  to 
induce  him  to  dance  a  pas  de  quatre  out 
of  the  palace,  and  when  Agamemnon 
trembled  so  that  there  was  imminent  risk 
of  the  sandals  coming  off,  let  alone  dan- 
cing, danced  a  pas  seul  himself.  He  set 
Mr.  Sykes  upon  the  altar  and  crowned  him 
with  roses.  He  said  he  could  n't  remember 
a  word  of  his  part,  and  proposed  to  act 
the  execution  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots 
instead  or  send  the  audience  empty  away. 
He  peeped  through  the  spy-hole  of  the 
curtain  and  said  the  conductor  had  n't 
come,  which  sent  Dr.  Propert  flying  round 
to  see  what  had  happened,  whereas  he  had 


208  The  Babe,  B.A. 

been  in  his  place  for  ten  minutes.  In  fact, 
he  crowded,  as  he  said,  into  five  minutes 
of  glorious  life,  the  fatuities  of  years. 
The  effect  of  all  this  was  that  the  rest  of 
the  company  were  so  completely  taken  up 
with  deploring  his  behaviour,  that  they 
quite  forgot  to  be  nervous,  which  was  pre- 
cisely the  end  which  the  Babe  had  in 
view. 

The  performance  rose  to  the  level  of 
excellence,  and  Cassandra  maintained  it, 

but    Clytemnestra the    pens    of    the 

critics  failed  before  Clytemnestra.  They 
could  n't,  they  confessed,  do  her  justice. 
She  was  a  creation,  a  revelation,  an  incar- 
nation ;  she  was  wonderful,  marvellous, 
stupendous,  gorgeous,  inimitable,  irresisti- 
ble, unapproachable,  inexplicable.  She 
held  the  mirror  up  to  Nature,  the  nd- 
roTtrpov  up  to  art,  and  the  speculum  up  to 
drama — this  was  a  little  involved,  and  Dr. 
Propert  is  responsible.  A  shaggy  student 
from  Heidelberg  who  represented  his  uni- 
versity, thought  she  was  a  woman,  and, 
heedless  of  Agamemnon's  doom,  fell  in 
love  with  her  on  the  spot,  and  was  dis- 


Clytemnestrismos.  209 

posed  to  take  it  as  a  personal  insult  that 
the  Babe  was  of  the  sex  that  Nature  made 
him.  However,  as  marriage  was  out  of 
the  question,  he  wrote  an  appreciative  ar- 
ticle in  the  Heidelberg  Mittheilungen  on 
Clytemnestrismos  (made  in  Germany), 
contrasting  it  with  Agamemnonismos, 
with  a  great  deal  about  the  standpoint  of 
the  subjective  Ego,  in  the  presence  of  ob- 
jective archaism.  She  held  the  house, 
she  entranced  the  audience,  she  domi- 
nated their  imaginations  ;  she  tore  away 
the  veil  of  realism  from  in  front  of  ideal- 
ism (whatever  that  may  mean)  ;  she  gilded 
^Eschylus's  conception,  and  enriched  his 
execution.  She  was  Clytemnestra.  And 
then  they  began  all  over  again  with  varia- 
tions. 

Every  night  at  the  fall  of  the  curtain, 
the  Babe  was  called  back  again  and  again, 
every  night  the  whole  house  rose  at  him 
like  one  man,  and  the  florist  outside  the 
theatre  must  have  realised  a  competence 
for  the  rest  of  his  days.  It  had  been  a 
rather  dull  and  uneventful  term,  the  Uni- 
versity wanted  something  to  go  mad 

M 


210  The  Babe,  B.A. 

about,  and  stark  staring  mad  it  went.  If 
Cambridge  had  not  been  in  a  Christian 
country,  it  would  have  had  a  Babe-cult  on 
the  spot.  His  photograph,  taken  at  the 
great  moment  when  he  came  out  with 
"murder  beaming  from  every  line  of  his 
countenance "  as  the  Cambridge  Daily 
News  finely  observed,  and  slowly  wrung 
his  hands  free  of  the  blood  that  dripped 
from  them,  was  in  half  the  shops  in  the 
town.  For  the  second  time — a  unique 
distinction — he  was  in  authority  in  the 
"  Granta,"  and  the  Cambridge  Review  had 
a  long  article  entirely  about  him,  begin- 
ning, "  It  must  surely  have  occurred  to 
any  thoughtful  critic."  Night  after  night 
the  cry  of  "  Speech  " — what  could  have 
been  less  appropriate  than  that  Clytem- 
nestra  should  make  an  English  speech 
after  a  Greek  play  ? — went  up  from  a 
crowded  house,  and  as  regularly  the  Babe 
bowed  and  smiled  and  shook  his  black- 
wigged  head,  and  gracefully  declined. 
Once — it  was  most  indecorous  and  im- 
proper— he  went  so  far  as  to  whistle  to 
Sykes  who  was  always  in  attendance,  and 


Clytemnestrismos.  2 1  T 

made  him  bark,  but  otherwise  the  attempt 
to  get  a  speech  from  the  Babe  was  as 
unprofitable  as  trying  to  get  water  out  of 
a  stone.  And  his  performance  was  the 
more  remarkable  in  that  he  did  not  repeat 
himself  slavishly  :  acting  was  an  instinct 
with  him,  and  each  night  he  acted  as  his 
mood  prompted  him.  For  instance,  his 
manner  of  entry  after  the  murder,  changed 
every  night.  Once  he  stood  at  the  palace 
door  quite  silent  for  nearly  a  couple  of 
minutes,  until  Dr.  Propert  turned  quite 
pale  with  the  thought  that  perhaps  the 
prompter  might  think  that  he  wanted 
prompting,  and  spoil  the  moment,  wiping 
his  hands  slowly,  and  smiling  a  ghastly 
smile  at  the  chorus  ;  once  he  came  out 
quickly  and  threw  the  axe  away  from  him 
and  plunged  into  his  speech  ;  once,  and 
an  audible  horror  ran  round  the  house  as 
he  did  it,  he  broke  into  the  silence  by  a 
mirthless  laugh  as  he  fondled  the  axe 
with  which  he  had  done  the  deed,  like  a 
mother  nursing  her  child.  In  a  word,  he 
made  it  clear,  that  /Eschylus  was  a  most 
excellent  dramatist,  and  that  he  was  a 
most  excellent  actor, 


XVI. — AFTER   LUNCH. 


I  shall  be  by  the  fire,  suppose. 

BROWNING. 


THERE  were  only  three  weeks  more  to 
the  end  of  the  term,  but  as  soon  as  the 
play  was  over,  the  Babe  at  once  settled 
down  again  to  his  social  and  historical 
duties.  With  December  a  hard  frost  had 
set  in,  and  football  for  a  time  was  at  a 
standstill.  But  next  to  football  as  an 
after  lunch  amusement,  the  Babe  pre- 
ferred above  everything  else  a  warm 
room,  a  large  chair,  and  congenial  com- 
pany. With  these  objects  in  view  he 
asked  Reggie  and  Ealing  to  lunch  with 
him  one  day,  and  entirely  refused  to  go 
out  afterwards.  Reggie,  who  had  a  sort 
of  traditional  notion  that  people  always 
went  out  after  lunch,  or  else  they  were  ill, 
was  overruled  by  the  Babe,  who  sent  his 
gyp  out  to  order  muffins  for  tea,  and  drew 
his  chair  close  up  to  the  fire. 

213 


After  Lunch.  213 

"  But  it  's  such  a  jolly  day,  Babe,"  said 
Reggie,  who  was  only  half  persuaded. 

The  Babe  looked  out  of  the  window 
and  shuddered. 

"  By  that  you  mean  that  there  is  a  hor- 
rid smell  of  frost  in  the  air,  that  the  sun 
looks  like  a  copper  plate,  and  that  by 
walking  very  fast  and  putting  on  woollen 
gloves  you  can  get  completely  warm,  with 
the  exception  of  the  end  of  your  nose.  I 
hate  woollen  gloves,  I  hate  walking  fast, 
and  I  hate  the  tip  of  my  nose  to  be  cold. 
I  avoid  all  these  things  by  sitting  by  the 
fire." 

"  Fuggy  brute." 

"  About  my  being  a  brute,"  said  the 
Babe,  "there  may  be  two  opinions.  But 
fuggy,  as  you  call  it,  I  am.  I  confess  it, 
and  I  glory  in  it.  At  the  same  time  I  'm 
no  fuggier  than  you.  If  you  had  your 
way  you  would  go  a  nasty  walk  in  order 
to  get  fuggy.  We  both  want  to  be  fuggy, 
and  I  merely  adopt  the  easiest  method  of 
becoming  so.  Dear  Reggie,  you  are  so 
very  English.  You  love  taking  the  great- 
est possible  trouble  to  secure  your  object. 


2H  The  Babe,  B.A. 

That  is  called  the  Sporting  Instinct.  Per- 
sonally I  am  not  troubled  with  a  sluggish 
liver,  but  if  I  was  I  should  take  a  pill. 
That  would  not  suit  English  people  at  all : 
instead  of  taking  a  pill,  they  take  exer- 
cise, purely  medicinally,  and  they  always 
adopt  the  most  circuitous  ways  of  taking 
it.  What  can  be  a  more  elaborate  method 
of  guarding  against  a  sluggish  liver  than 
spending  three  thousand  pounds  on  build- 
ing a  tennis  court,  which  can  only  be 
used  by  two  people  at  a  time  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  play  Rugger  for,  then  ?  " 

"  Why,  because  it  is  the  most  expedi- 
tious way  possible  of  getting  exercise.  You 
concentrate  into  an  hour  the  exercise  you 
could  n't  get  under  half  a  day  if  you  went 
a  walk." 

'•  I  have  known  you  get  keen  about  it," 
said  Reggie.  "  Was  that  only  because  you 
admired  the  expedition  with  which  you 
were  getting  exercise  ?  " 

The  Babe  yawned. 

"We'll  change  the  subject,"  he  said. 
"  I  've  been  asked  to  your  Comby  on  the 
6th.  I  don't  know  why  a  college  should 


After  Lunch.  215 

celebrate  the  birthday  of  their  founder 
by  making  scurrilous  rhymes  about  each 
other,  but  I  'm  quite  glad  that  they  should, 
and  I  have  very  kindly  consented  to 
come." 

"  Thanks,  awfully,"  said  Ealing. 

"  Don't  mention  it.  But  really  it 's  a 
very  interesting  point,  as  Longridge  would 
say.  You  all  go  to  chapel,  and  they  sing 
'  Zadok  the  priest.'  Then  you  have  a  big 
feed  in  Hall,  and  the  whole  college  assem- 
bles together,  and  they  libel  each  other 
in  decasyllabic  couplets.  Luckily  there 's 
no  rhyme  to  Babe." 

"  There  are  heaps,"  said  Reggie  pre- 
cipitously. 

"  I  think  none.  Talking  of  Longridge, 
he  is  supposed  to  be  perfecting  a  plan 
by  which,  as  you  walk  up  to  your  door 
you  tread  on  a  spring,  and  the  door  flies 
open.  He  says  it  is  so  tiresome  to  open 
a  door  when  your  hands  are  full.  And 
his  hands  always  are  full." 

"  It  sounds  very  pleasant,"  said  Reggie. 
"  Has  he  tried  it  yet  ?  " 

"  Only  once.     That  time  his  door  was 


216  The  Babe,  B.A. 

already  open,  and  when  'he  trod  on  the 
spring,  it  shut  with,  I  believe,  quite  in- 
credible violence  and  knocked  all  his  books 
out  of  his  hands,  besides  hurting  him  very 
much  and  breaking  his  spectacles.  You  'd 
think  that  would  stop  him  ?  Not  a  bit. 
He  merely  rose  on  the  stepping-stone  of 
his  dead  self  to  higher  things.  It  only 
gave  him  another  new  idea.  He  is  going 
to  have  a  second  spring  inside  the  door, 
which,  when  trodden  on  will  shut  it  again 
after  you.  At  least  that 's  what  he  means 
to  do,  when  he  is  fit  to  walk  about  again. 
At  present  he  is  incapacitated.  I  went  to 
see  him  yesterday ;  his  nose  is  in  splints. 
I  am  so  glad  I  have  n't  an  ingenious 
mind." 

"I  would  n't  be  Longridge's  bed-maker, 
if  I  was  paid  for  it." 

"  Bed-makers  are  paid  for  it,"  said  the 
Babe.  "  Besides,  as  he  truly  says,  if  you 
can  have  a  dumb  waiter  why  not  have  a 
dumb  bed-maker  made  of  some  stronger 
material  ?  " 

"  He  never  said  anything  of  the  kind, 
Babe,"  said  Ealing. 


After  Lunch.  217 

"  My  dear  chap,  he  has  said  lots  of 
things  of  the  kind.  You  force  me  to 
contradict  you.  He  hardly  ever  says 
anything  of  any  other  kind." 

"  Babe,  will  you  or  will  you  not  come 
out  ?  "  demanded  Reggie. 

"  I  will  not  come  out.  I 'm  not  going  to 
spoil  my  tea  by  going  for  a  horrid  walk." 

"  I  wish  you  would  listen  to  reason." 

The  Babe  murmured  something  in- 
audible about  there  being  no  reason  to 
listen,  but  when  pressed,  confessed  that 
he  had  been  reading  the  Green  Carnation 
and  it  had  affected  his  brains. 

But  Reggie,  following,  as  the  Babe 
said,  "  that  blind  instinct  which  makes  us 
Englishmen  what  we  are  " — he  was  taking 
liberties  with  the  remarks  made  by  his 
fellow-guest  at  the  T.  A.  F. — insisted  on 
going  out  and  taking  Ealing  with  him, 
though  promising  to  come  back  for  tea, 
and  the  Babe  was  left  to  himself. 

He  was  conscious  of  feeling  a  little  flat, 
now  that  the  Greek  play  was  over,  and 
he  half  wondered  to  himself  what  he  had 
done  before  it  began,  to  get  through  the 


218  The  Babe,  B.A. 

time.  For  instance,  to-day  it  was  barely 
half-past  three,  he  was  not  going  to  dine 
till  eight,  and  he  had  already  done  as 
much  work  as  he  meant  to  do.  He 
thought  bitterly  that  Dr.  Watts  had  very 
much  overrated  Satan's  powers  of  inven- 
tion. The  upshot  was  that  he  fell  asleep 
and  Reggie  and  Ealing  returning  an  hour 
later  found  him  stewing  contentedly  in 
front  of  the  fire. 

The  Babe  was  rather  cross  at  being 
awakened,  and  he  said  they  smelt  horribly 
frosty.  Also  he  wished  the  door  to  be 
shut,  and  he  was  very  hungry.  Why  were 
they  so  unkind,  and  what  had  he  done 
to  deserve  this  ?  But  the  muffins  came 
before  long,  and  the  Babe  recovered  his 
admirable  serenity  under  the  cheering 
influence  of  most  of  them. 

"And  though  your  muffin,"  he  re- 
marked, "  is  said  to  destroy  the  coats  of 
the  stomach,  no  such  ill  effects  will  be 
experienced  if  the  patient  takes  enough 
of  them.  My  only  misgiving  is  that  I 
have  not  taken  enough.  And  yet  I  have 
taken  all." 


After  Lunch.  219 

"  How  much  dinner  do  you  suppose 
you  will  be  able  to  eat?"  asked  Reggie, 
who  was  still  gazing  incredulously  at  the 
empty  dish  which  the  Babe  had  put  on  the 
table  close  to  him. 

"  As  much  as  Stewart  will  be  kind 
enough  to  give  me.  And  his  board  is 
usually  plentifully  spread.  If  he  asks  me 
to  dinner  much  oftener  I  shall  feel 
bound  in  common  gratitude  to  tell  him 
the  truth  about  my  royal  visitor  in  the 
Long.  I  wish  I  'd  had  a  photograph  of 
the  group  taken,  Jack  really  looked  too 
splendid." 

"Jack  has  the  makings  of  a  comedian 
about  him,"  said  Reggie,  "but  just  now 
he  's  very  serious.  There  is  an  epidemic 
of  sapping  abroad,  but  if  it  was  n't  sap- 
ping, it  would  probably  be  influenza,  so 
we  can't  complain.  You  're  touched  with 
it,  Babe,  and  Jack  's  got  it  badly.  I  went 
to  see  him  yesterday,  and  he  was  analysing 
the  second  Punic  war  in  a  large  square 
note-book  with  notes  on  the  Wasps  at 
the  other  end." 

"  I    know.     And    he  was  quite    angry 


220  The  Babe,  B.A. 

when  I  ventured  to  speak  disrespectfully 
of  Hannibal.  He  called  me  a  funny  ass, 
and  implied  that  Hannibal  was  more  than 
a  father  to  him.  Also  he  has'  taken  to 
red  ink  which  is  one  of  the  worst  signs. 
I  went  into  his  room  in  the  dark  one  day 
last  week,  and  upset  something.  It 
proved  to  be  a  stone  bottle  of  red  ink, 
rather  larger  than  a  ginger-beer  bottle 
and  quite  full.  Also  the  cork  was  out, 
and  after  that  there  was  no  further  need 
for  the  cork.  It  would  have  been  like 
locking  the  stable  door  when  the  steed 
was  spilt — I  mean,  stolen.  I  pointed  that 
out  to  him,  for  it  was  surely  consoling  to 
know  that  no  more  red  ink  could  be  spilt 
in  his  rooms,  unless  he  was  rash  enough 
to  buy  some  more,  in  which  case,  so  to 
speak,  it  would  have  been  on  his  own 
head,  which  would  be  worse  than  on  the 
carpet,  but  he  only  murmured,  '  Caius 
Flaminius  Secundus,'  and  asked  if  I 
was  sitting  on  his  classical  dictionary." 

"  And  were  you  ?  " 

"  I  think  it  turned  out  that  he  was. 
So  I  called  him  a  sap,  and  went  away." 


After  Lunch.  221 

"  I  hate  a  sap,"  said  Reggie  with  a  cer- 
tain dignity. 

"  We  used  to  call  a  sap  a  groutbags  at 
my  private  school,"  said  Ealing. 

"Why?" 

"  I  don't  know  what  else  you  could  call 
them.  I  was  a  groutbags  once  myself." 

The  Babe  yawned. 

"  I  feel  rather  futile,"  he  said.  "  I 
wanted  to  be  amused,  and  you  fellows 
would  go  for  a  walk.  Let  's  play  '  Kiss 
in  the  slipper,'  or  something." 

"  I  hear  you  played  Van  John  till  two 
this  morning,"  said  Reggie. 

The  Babe  stopped  in  the  middle  of  his 
yawn. 

"Yes,  a  little  after  two,  I  think.  We 
played  Van  John  and  other  things.  I 
lost  six  pounds.  Blow  the  expense.  Do 
you  know  Feltham  of  this  college  ?  " 

"No,  why?" 

"  Oh,  nothing.  He  was  there,  that  's 
all." 

"Nice  chap?" 

"  Nothing  particular.  Oh,  yes,  quite 
nice,  I  should  think,  but  he  went  away 


222  The  Babe,  B.A. 

as  soon  as  we  shut  up  playing.  I  hardly 
know  him — in  fact  I  never  met  him  be- 
fore. Hullo,  it  's  seven.  I  must  go." 

"  Where  are  you  going  ? " 

"  Only  to  see  a  man  I  know,  as  the 
Apostles  say.  Are  either  of  you  dining 
with  Stewart  to-night  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  am,"  said  Reggie.  "  At  eight, 
is  n't  it?" 

"Yes.  Be  punctual,  because  I  'm  so 
hungry." 


XVII. — A  LITTLE  GAME. 

Whist  is  slow,  but  baccarat  bites, 
Baccarat  bites,  and  we  want  to  be  bit ; 

Late  comes  dawn  on  these  winter  nights. 
And  you  need  no  knowledge  to  play  at  it. 

HOTCH-POTCH  VERSES. 

IN  all  his  life  for  two  years  and  a  half 
at  Cambridge,  and  he  had  associated  with 
very  many  classes  there,  the  Babe  had 
never  come  across  any  man  whom  he 
would  suspect  of  being  capable  of  doing 
that  which  necessitated  his  going  to  see 
"the  man"  he  knew  on  such  an  errand 
as  this,  and  he  concluded  rightly  that 
though  such  people  no  doubt  occurred, 
they  were  not  to  be  looked  for,  with  any 
chance  of  finding  them,  at  university 
towns.  His  errand  was  not  a  pleasant 
one,  and  it  was  far  from  being  an  easy 
one,  and  when  he  knocked  at  Feltham's 
door  a  few  minutes  afterwards,  he  could 
not  have  hazarded  the  vaguest  guess  as 
to  what  manner  of  exit  he  would  make. 

The  Babe  was,  unfortunately,  strongly 
possessed  by  the  gambling  instinct,  and 
223 


224  The  Babe,  B.A. 

when  the  night  before  a  friend  of  his  had 
come  in  after  Hall,  and  proposed  whist  if 
they  could  get  a  four,  the  Babe  said  that 
if  they  were  going  to  play  cards,  they 
might  as  well  play  something  more  amus- 
ing than  whist,  which  seemed  to  him  as 
a  peculiarly  unexhilarating  mode  of  en- 
joying oneself,  and  which  he  regarded  as 
a  practical  application  of  unmixed  mathe- 
matics. If  Broxton  would  raise  two  peo- 
ple to  play  at  something  more  biting  than 
whist,  the  Babe  would  raise  two  others. 

The  Babe  raised  his  two  without  much 
delay,  but  Broxton  returned  with  only 
one.  However,  he  said  he  had  met  a 
chap  called  Feltham,  who,  he  knew, 
played,  and  should  he  see  whether  he 
could  come  ? 

The  Babe  would  have  played  cards 
with  old  Gooseberry  himself,  if  he  could 
not  get  anyone  else,  so  Broxton  went  off 
to  see  whether  Feltham  would  play,  found 
him  in  and  willing,  and  they  played  Van 
John  for  a  while,  until  the  Babe  began  to 
yawn  and  complained  he  had  only  lost 
three  and  six.  Did  they  know  Marmara, 


A  Little  Game.  225 

which  was  indifferently  called  "Only-a- 
penny,"  chiefly  because  it  dealt  with  sums 
usually  much  larger  than  that. 

Some  of  them,  and  among  these  was 
Feltham,  did  know  Marmara,  and  the 
others  were  willing  to  learn  it.  So  the 
Babe,  assuring  them  that  no  previous 
knowledge  was  required,  proceeded  to 
enlighten  them.  Everyone  placed  a  small 
sum,  say  sixpence,  or  its  equivalent  in 
counters,  in  the  pool,  and  the  dealer 
thereupon  dealt  three  cards  face  down- 
wards all  around,  and  three  to  himself. 
He  then  turned  up  the  next  card,  and 
you  had  all  your  premises. 

Thus — if,  for  instance,  the  card  turned 
up  happened  to  be  a  four  of  diamonds, 
each  player  in  turn  had  to  bet,  before 
looking  at  his  three  cards  which  lay  face 
downwards  on  the  table,  whether  they 
contained  a  diamond  higher  than  the  four. 
His  stake  was  only  limited  by  the  sum 
in  the  pool  unless  they  chose  to  fix  a 
smaller  limit.  Thus  with  the  four  turned 
up,  it  would  probably  appear  to  each 
player  that  there  was  a  fair  chance  of  his 


226  The  Babe,  B.A. 

holding  a  higher  card  of  the  same  suit, 
and  he  would  in  all  likelihood  stake  pretty 
well  as  high  as  he  could.  He  would  then 
turn  up  his  cards,  and  if  his  hand  held  a 
diamond  higher  than  the  four,  he  would 
have  the  pleasure  of  taking  the  amount  of 
his  stake  out  of  the  pool,  if  not,  the  pain 
of  paying  into  the  pool  the  same  sum. 

The  game,  so  said  the  Babe,  was  amus- 
ing, owing  to  the  fact  that  it  was  pure 
hazard,  and  also  because  the  pool  mounted 
up  in  a  way  that  would  seem  to  the  unini- 
tiated simply  incredible.  An  example  of 
this  occurred  at  the  fifth  deal.  At  the 
beginning  of  this  deal  the  pool  contained 
four  shillings.  The  Babe  dealt,  and 
turned  up  the  two  of  spades.  The  first 
player  naturally  enough  went  the  pool, 
but  his  hand  very  curiously  contained 
only  diamonds,  and  he  paid  four  shillings 
into  the  pool,  thus  raising  it  to  eight. 
Even  more  naturally,  since  the  first  player 
had  held  no  spades,  the  second  player 
again  staked  the  pool.  His  hand  con- 
tained two  hearts  and  a  club,  and  the 
pool  became  sixteen  shillings.  It  would 


A  Little  Game.  227 

have  been  midsummer  madness  in  the 
third  player,  who  was  Broxton,  not  to 
stake  the  pool,  and  as  it  was  November 
and  he  was  perfectly  sane,  he  did  so.  His 
hand  revealed  three  splendid  hearts,  and 
the  pool  rose  to  thirty-two  shillings.  The 
chances  were  thus  enormously  in  favour 
of  the  fourth  player  clearing  the  pool,  and 
he  accordingly  staked  it.  But  as  he  held 
a  diamond  and  two  clubs,  he  paid  the 
pool  the  equivalent  of  thirty-two  shillings, 
in  mean  bone  counters,  belonging  to  the 
Babe.  There  was  nothing  left  for  the 
fifth  player,  who  was  Feltham,  to  do  but 
to  stake  the  pool,  which  he  did.  His 
hand,  oddly  enough,  contained  the  seven, 
eight,  and  nine  of  clubs,  and  he  remarked 
quite  unreasonably,  as  he  paid  sixty-four 
shillings  into  the  pool,  that  the  cards  had 
not  been  shuffled.  Thus  the  Babe,  who 
had  dealt,  had  a  pool  of  sixty-four  shil- 
lings to  win  or  lose.  He  staked  the  pool, 
but  he  held  one  diamond,  one  club,  and 
the  ace  of  spades,  which  counted  below 
the  two,  and  he  wrote  an  I  O  U  for 
sixty-four  shillings,  as  he  had  not  got 


228  The  Babe,  B.A. 

enough  counters,  and  paid  it  into  the 
pool,  remarking  that  this  was  better  than 
whist  at  three  penny  points.  Then  the 
pool  in  one  deal  had  mounted  from  four 
shillings,  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
shillings,  and  it  was  obvious  that  if  a  simi- 
lar deal  occurred  again  now,  there  would 
be  a  very  considerable  sum  in  the  pool  at 
the  end  of  it. 

The  Babe  in  these  matters  was,  like 
the  Athenians,  somewhat  superstitious, 
and  he  said  cheerfully  that  it  was  a  mount- 
ing pool,  and  they  would  have  some 
amusement.  The  pool  showed  by  its 
subsequent  conduct  that  he  was  right, 
and  at  the  end  of  an  hour  it  held  about 
^50,  about  half  of  which  had  been  con- 
tributed by  Feltham,  whose  luck  had  been 
abominable.  This,  as  they  were  playing 
at  present,  might  be  won  by  anybody, 
since  there  was  no  limit  to  the  stakes,  and 
the  Babe,  with  the  best  possible  motives, 
since  he  was  the  only  one  present  who 
would  not  be  somewhat  embarrassed  by 
the  total  loss  of  his  contribution  to  the 
pool,  proposed  setting  a  limit,  of,  say, 


A  Little  Game.  229 

twenty-five  shillings  to  the  stake.  Fel- 
tham  objected  strongly,  and  the  alteration 
was  vetoed. 

Everyone,  with  the  exception  perhaps 
of  the  Babe,  was  a  little  excited  and  on 
edge,  for  when  two  or  three  are  gathered 
together  to  gamble  they  often  generate 
spontaneously  between  them — this  is  a 
sober  fact — a  little  demon  which  hovers 
about  and  unsettles  their  nerves.  Fel- 
tham  especially  hardly  spoke,  except  to 
name  his  stake,  and  sometimes  to  swear 
when  he  lost  it,  and  the  Babe  felt  that 
they  were  all  taking  it  too  seriously  and 
quite  spoiling  his  pleasure.  For  himself, 
he  liked  a  "  little  game  "  because  it  hap- 
pened to  amuse  him,  but  the  others  were 
behaving  as  if  they  cared  whether  they 
won  money  or  lost  money,  and  this,  to 
the  Babe's  thinking,  spoilt  the  whole 
thing.  The  point  of  gambling,  accord- 
ing to  him,  was  not  whether  you  won 
money  or  lost  money,  but  the  moment 
when  it  was  uncertain  whether  you  were 
going  to  win  (in  the  abstract)  or  lose 
(in  the  abstract).  The  view  is  wholly 


230  The  Babe,  B.A. 

unreasonable,    and    so    is   the    gambling 
instinct. 

It  was  Broxton's  turn  to  deal.  He 
dealt  badly,  holding  the  pack  from  which 
he  dealt  nearly  a  foot  above  the  table, 
so  that  if  any  of  them  happened  to  be 
looking  at  the  cards  as  they  were  dealt  to 
him,  the  chances  were  that  he  would  get 
a  glimpse  or  a  hint  of  what  the  under  one 
was,  and  once  before  that  evening  the 
Babe  had  demanded  a  fresh  deal,  because 
as  his  cards  were  dealt  him,  he  could  not 
help  seeing  the  corner  of  a  picture  card. 
This  time,  however,  he  was  handing  a 
cigarette  to  Feltham,  who  sat  on  his 
right.  But  as  Feltham's  cards  were  dealt 
him  the  Babe  saw  him  look  up  quickly, 
and  he  himself  saw  the  face  of  one  of 
them,  so  far,  at  least,  that  he  would  have 
been  ready  to  swear  it  was  a  picture  card 
in  clubs.  Feltham  at  the  moment  seemed 
to  him  to  open  his  mouth  to  speak,  but 
said  nothing  and  only  glanced  hurriedly 
at  the  Babe,  who  did  not  look  at  him 
again  during  the  game.  The  turn-up 
card  was  the  nine  of  clubs. 


A  Little  Game.  231 

The  first  two  players  naturally  enough, 
as  there  were  only  four  cards  out  of  fifty- 
two  which  could  beat  the  nine,  staked  a 
nominal  stake  merely,  and  turned  up  their 
cards.  One  of  them  held  the  king  of 
clubs,  and  this  would  have  won,  leaving 
only  three  cards  in  the  pack  which  could 
win.  He  took  a  shilling,  the  amount  of 
his  stake,  out  of  the  pool,  and  said  he 
wished  he  had  trusted  to  his  instinct.  It 
was  Feltham's  turn.  He  staked  £20, 
which  was  madness.  His  hand  contained 
the  queen  of  clubs  and  he  won. 

Very  soon  after,  the  Babe  renewed  his 
proposition  that  they  should  limit  the 
stakes,  and  this  time  there  was  no  oppo- 
sition, and  as  it  was  already  after  one, 
they  settled  to  stop  as  soon  as  the  pool 
had  been  emptied.  The  pool,  seeing 
them  change  their  tactics,  also  changed 
its  own,  and  instead  of  mounting  con- 
tinued to  sink  steadily.  Every  now  and 
then  it  would  go  up  again  by  a  couple  of 
limit  stakes,  but  the  constant  tendency 
was  to  sink,  and  in  three-quarters  of  an 


232  The  Babe,  B.A. 

hour  it  was  empty.  Broxton  gathered 
up  the  cards  and  counters,  and  Feltham 
and  two  of  the  others  said  "  Good-night," 
and  left  the  room,  but  Anstruther  and  the 
Babe  sat  down  and  waited.  The  Babe 
helped  himself  to  whisky,  tore  up  his 
own  I  O  U's  which  he  had  paid  for,  and 
there  was  a  long  awkward  silence. 

Broxton  got  up,  closed  the  door,  and 
came  and  stood  in  front  of  the  fire. 

"  That  fellow  cheated,"  he  said  at  last. 
"  I  saw  him,  twice.  Did  you  notice, 
Babe  ?  " 

"  I  thought  he  saw  the  cards  which 
were  dealt  him  once.  The  turn-up  was 
a  nine  of  clubs  and  he  staked  £20.  It 
struck  me  as  unusual,  particularly  as  the 
king  was  already  out." 

"  Then  he  cheated  twice,  as  Jim  said," 
answered  Anstruther.  "  I  am  convinced 
he  saw  his  cards  once  before,  both  times 
when  Jim  was  dealing." 

"Jim,  you  damned  fool,"  said  the 
Babe,  "why  can't  you  manage  to  deal 
properly  ?  " 

"  We  're  all    damned    fools,    I   think," 


A  Little  Game.  233 

said  Broxton.  "  What  business  have  we 
got  to  ask  a  fellow  to  play  whom  we  don't 
know,  and  who  probably  can't  afford  it." 

"  Nor  can  I,"  said  Anstruther,  "but  I 
don't  cheat." 

"Are  we  quite  sure  he  did  cheat?" 
asked  the  Babe. 

"  Personally,  I  am,"  said  Broxton, 
"  are  n't  you,  Anstruther  ?  " 

"  Good  Lord,  yes." 

"  Well,  what 's  to  be  done  ? "  asked  the 
Babe. 

"  The  men  who  play  with  him  ought  to 
know,"  said  Anstruther. 

The  Babe  got  up,  and  threw  his  torn- 
up  I  O  U's  into  the  fire. 

"  Rot,"  he  said.  "  We  can't  possibly 
be  certain.  And  I  'm  not  going  to  ask 
him  to  play  again  in  order  to  watch  him. 
That  seems  to  me  perhaps  one  degree 
lower  than  cheating  oneself.  It 's  our 
own  fault,  as  Jim  said,  for  asking  him." 

"  My  dear  Babe,  we  can't  leave  it  as  it 
is." 

"  No,  I  don't  want  to  do  that.  I  only 
meant  that  we  could  n't  tell  other  people 


234  The  Babe,  B.A. 

what  we  suspected,  unless  we  were  cer- 
tain, and  not  even  then.  And  we  can't 
be  certain  unless  we  play  with  him  again, 
and  that  I  don't  mean  to  do." 

"  What  do  you  propose  to  do  then  ?  " 

"  I  propose  that  one  of  us  tells  him 
what  we  thought  we  saw.'' 

41  And  if  he  denies  it  ?  " 

"  The  matter  ends  there.  At  the  same 
time  to  make  it  clear  to  him  that  three 
people  separately  thought  they  saw  him." 

"Thought  they  saw  him  !  "  said  Brox- 
ton. 

"  Certainly.  Thought  they  saw  him. 
I  daresay  he  is  n't  a  bad  chap.  I  daresay 
he  was  playing  for  far  more  than  he  could 
afford.  It  is  even  possible  he  will  confess 
he  did  cheat,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that 
we  are  all  wrong  and  that  he  did  n't. 
Personally  I  certainly  thought  he  did,  but 
I  would  n't  take  my  oath  on  it." 

"Who's  to  ask  him?" 

There  was  a  short  silence.     Then — 

"  I  will,  if  you  like,"  said  the  Babe. 

"Thanks,  Babe,"  said  Jim,  "you'd  do 
it  better  than  either  of  us." 


A  Little  Game.  235 

The  Babe  lit  a  cigarette,  and  finished 
his  whisky. 

"  I  'm  off  to  bed,"  he  said,  "  I  would 
sooner  have  played  '  old  maid '  than  that 
this  should  have  happened.  Of  course 
none  of  us  say  a  word  about  it  ?  Good- 
night, you  chaps." 

Anstruther  and  Broxton  sat  on  for  a 
bit  after  the  Babe  had  gone. 

"It's  a  devilish  business,"  said  the  lat- 
ter at  length.  "  But  I  'm  sure  the  Babe 
will  manage  it  as  well  as  it  can  be  man- 
aged." 

"  The  Babe  is  n't  half  a  bad  chap,"  said 
Anstruther. 

"  No,  I  don't  think  he  is.  In  fact,  I 
don't  think  I  ever  knew  a  better.  Are  you 
off?  Good-night." 

The  Babe  wrote  a  note  to  Feltham 
next  morning  asking  him  if  he  would  be 
in  at  seven  that  evening,  and  receiving  an 
affirmative  answer,  it  thus  came  about 
that  he  tapped  at  his  door  at  that  hour. 


XVIII. — THE  CONFESSION. 

Qui  s' accuse,  s'excuse. 

FROM  THE  FRENCH. 

THE  Babe's  supposition  that  Feltham 
"  perhaps  was  n't  a  bad  chap  "  was  per- 
fectly correct.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
perfectly  true  that  he  had  cheated  at  cards, 
which,  quite  rightly,  is  one  of  the  few 
social  crimes  for  which  a  man  is  ostracised. 

He  had  cheated,  and  he  knew  it,  and 
he  was  thoroughly,  honestly,  and  unreserv- 
edly ashamed  of  it.  He  did  not  try  to 
console  himself  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
never  done  it  before,  and  by  the  knowl- 
edge that  he  would  never  do  it  again, 
because  he  knew  that  he  would  fail  to 
find  the  slightest  consolation  in  that, 
though  it  was  perfectly  true.  The  thing 
was  done  and  it  was  past  mending.  Twice 
he  had  seen  the  cards,  or  at  any  rate  had 
a  suspicion  of  one  of  them,  when  they 
were  dealt  him,  without  saying  anything. 
On  one  of  these  occasions  what  he  had 
236 


The  Confession.  237 

seen  did  not  help  him,  for  he  saw  only 
a  card  of  another  suit,  but  once,  when  he 
had  seen  the  queen  of  clubs,  he  traded  on 
it,  and  swindled  the  company  of  £20. 

How  he  had  come  to  do  it,  he  did  not 
know.  He  thought  the  devil  must  have 
taken  possession  of  him,  and  he  was 
probably  quite  right.  The  temptation 
was  the  stronger  because  he  had  lost,  as 
the  Babe  had  suggested,  much  more  than 
he  could  afford,  and  the  thing  was  done 
almost  before  he  meant  to  do  it.  He 
more  than  half  suspected  that  the  Babe 
had  noticed  it,  but  to  do  him  justice  this 
suspicion  weighed  very  light  in  his  mind, 
compared  with  the  fact  that  he  had 
cheated. 

Next  morning  the  Babe's  note  came, 
and  his  suspicion  that  the  Babe  had 
noticed  it  took  definite  form.  It  was  no 
manner  of  use  refusing  to  see  him,  but 
what  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind 
about,  was  what  answer  he  should  give 
him.  To  confess  it  would  not  help  him 
to  make  reparation,  and  to  return,  as  he 
honestly  wanted  to  do,  the  £20  he  had 


238  The  Babe,  B.A. 

won  and  besides  it  did  not  seem,  in  antici- 
pation, particularly  an  easy  thing  to  do. 
And  when  the  Babe  knocked  at  his  door, 
he  was  still  as  much  in  the  dark  as  ever, 
as  to  what,  if  the  Babe's  errand  was  what 
he  suspected,  he  should  say  to  him. 

The  Babe  accepted  a  cigarette,  and  sat 
down  rather  elaborately.  He  had  deter- 
mined not  to  remark  upon  the  weather  or 
the  prospects  of  an  early  dissolution,  or 
make  any  foolish  attempts  to  lead  up  to 
the  subject,  and  after  a  moment  he  spoke. 

"  I  am  awfully  sorry,"  he  said,  "  to  have 
to  say  what  I  am  going  to.  In  two  words 
it  is  this :  Three  men  with  whom  you 
were  playing  last  night  at  Marmara, 
thought  that  once  or  twice  you  saw  your 
cards,  or  one  of  your  cards,  before  you 
staked.  I  am  one  of  them  myself,  and 
we  decided  that  the  only  fair  and  proper 
thing  to  do  was  so  ask  you  whether  this 
was  so.  I  am  very  sorry  to  have  to  say 
this." 

The  Babe  behaved  like  the  gentleman 
he  was,  and  instead  of  looking  at  Feltham 
to  see  whether  his  face  indicated  anything, 
kept  his  eyes  steadily  away  from  him. 


The  Confession.  239 

Feltham  stood  a  moment  without  an- 
swering and  if  the  Babe  had  chosen  to 
look  at  him  he  would  have  seen  that  he 
paused  because  he  could  not  command  his 
voice.  But  the  Babe  did  not  choose  to  do 
so.  Feltham  would  have  given  anything 
that  moment  to  have  been  able  to  say  "It 
is  true,"  but  it  seemed  to  him  a  physical  im- 
possibility. On  the  other  hand  he  felt  it 
equally  impossible  to  take  the  high  line, 
to  threaten  to  kick  the  Babe  out  of  the 
room  unless  he  went  in  double  quick  time 
etc.,  etc., — to  do  any  of  those  things  which 
thorough-paced  swindlers  are  supposed  to 
do  when  their  honour  is  quite  properly 
called  in  question. 

"  It  is  a  damned  lie,"  he  said  at  length, 
quite  quietly  and  without  conviction. 

The  Babe  got  up  at  once,  and  stepped 
across  to  where  Feltham  was  standing. 

"  Then  I  wish  to  apologise  most  sin- 
cerely both  for  myself  and  the  other  two 
fellows,"  he  said,  "and  if  you  would  like 
to  knock  me  down,  you  may.  I  shall  of 
course  tell  them  at  once  we  were  mis- 
taken, and  I  believe  what  you  say  entirely. 
Will  you  shake  hands  ?" 


240  The  Babe,  B.A. 

Feltham  let  the  Babe  take  his  hand, 
and  as  the  latter  turned  to  leave  the  room, 
sat  limply  down  in  the  chair  from  which 
the  Babe  had  got  up. 

But  the  Babe  had  hardly  got  half-way 
across  the  room,  when  Felthan  spoke 
again. 

The  Babe's  utter  frankness  had  sud- 
denly made  it  impossible  for  Feltham  to 
let  him  go  without  telling  him,  but  to  tell 
him  now  was  not  made  easier  by  having 
lied  about  it. 

"  Please  wait  a  minute,"  he  said. 

The  Babe's  cigarette  had  gone  out,  and 
he  lit  it  again  over  the  lamp.  Then  he 
sat  down  in  the  window  seat  and  waited. 
Outside,  the  grass  was  sparkling  with  frost 
and  the  clock  chimed  a  quarter  past  seven. 
Simultaneously  Feltham  spoke  : 

"  I  have  lied  to  you  as  well,"  he  said. 
"  What  you  saw  was  perfectly  true.  I 
cheated  twice,  at  least  I  saw  one  of  the 
cards  dealt  me  twice,  and  said  nothing 
about  it.  Once  the  card  happened  to  be 
immaterial,  and  once  I  staked  £20  know- 
ing I  should  win.  I  have  told  you  all." 


The  Confession.  241 

The  Babe  was  a  person  of  infinite  vari- 
ety, and  if  those  who  knew  him  best  had 
seen  him  now,  they  would  hardly  have  be- 
lieved it  was  he.  He  sat  down  on  the 
arm  of  the  chair  where  Feltham  was  sit- 
ting, and  to  himself  cursed  the  whole  pack 
of  cards  from  ace  to  king,  and  above  all 
Jim  Broxton.  Then  aloud — 

"  My  poor  dear  fellow,"  he  said.  "  I  'm 
devilish  sorry  for  you." 

Feltham,  who  had  been  expecting  to 
hear  a  few  biting  remarks  or  else  merely 
the  door  slam  behind  the  Babe,  looked 
up.  The  Babe  was  looking  at  him,  quite 
kindly,  quite  naturally,  as  if  he  was  con- 
doling with  him  on  some  misfortune. 

Feltham  began,  "  Damn  it  all — "  then 
stopped,  and  without  a  moment's  warning 
burst  out  crying. 

The  Babe  got  up,  went  to  the  door  and 
sported  it.  Then  he  sat  down  again  on 
the  arm  of  the  chair. 

"  Poor  chap,"  he  said.  "  It 's  beastly 
hard  lines,  and  I  fully  expect  it's  as  much 
our  fault  as  yours.  You  need  n't  trouble 
to  tell  me  you  never  did  it  before  :  of 


242  The  Babe,  B.A. 

course  you  did  n't.  I  fully  believe  that. 
People  who  would  confess  that  sort  of 
thing  don't  do  that  sort  of  thing  twice. 
It  was  like  this  perhaps — we  were  playing 
for  far  more  than  you  could  afford,  and 
you  did  n't  mean  to  do  it,  until  somehow 
it  was  done.  Money  is  a  devilish  con- 
trivance." 

"  Yes,  it  was  just  like  that,"  said  Fel- 
tham.  "  As  I  told  you,  the  first  time  I 
saw  a  card,  it  did  n't  make  any  difference, 
though  of  course  I  ought  to  have  said  so. 
But  the  second  time  it  did,  and  before  I 
knew  what  I  had  done,  I  had  cheated. 
Why  don't  you  call  me  a  swindler  and 
tell  me  I  'm  not  fit  to  associate  with  gen- 
tlemen ?  It 's  God's  truth." 

The  corners  of  the  Babe's  mouth 
twitched. 

"It's  not  my  concern  then.  What 
would  be  the  good  of  saying  that  ?  " 

He  paused  a  moment,  hoping  that 
Feltham  would  make  a  certain  sugges- 
tion, and  he  was  not  disappointed. 

"  Look  here,  there  's  the  twenty  pounds  : 
what  can  I  do  with  it  ?  Can  you  help  me  ?  " 


The  Confession.  243 

The  Babe  thought  a  moment. 

"  Yes,  give  it  me.  I  '11  see  that  the 
other  fellows  get  it  somehow,  if  you  '11 
leave  it  to  my  discretion.  And,  you  know, 
it  sounds  absurd  for  a  fool  like  me  to  give 
advice,  but  if  I  were  you  I  should  n't  play 
cards  for  money  again.  It's  no  use  run- 
ning one's  head  into  danger.  If  it 's  not 
rude,  what  is  your  allowance?  " 

"Two  hundred  and  fifty." 

"  You  bally  ass !  Yet  I  don't  know. 
It 's  our  fault.  You  could  n't  tell  that 
the  pool  would  behave  in  that  manner, 
and  I  know,  personally,  I  should  find  it 
out  of  the  question  to  say  one  was  play- 
ing for  more  than  one  could  afford.  Some 
people  call  it  moral  cowardice,  it  seems  to 
me  a  perfectly  natural  reticence." 

"  Of  course  I  won't  play  again,"  said 
Feltham.  "  Why  have  you  been  so  aw- 
fully good  to  me  ?  " 

"I  haven't.  What  else  was  I  to  do? 
Oh,  yes,  and  I  think  I  respected  you  for 
telling  the  truth.  Most  fellows  would 
have  lied  like  George  Washington." 

Feltham  smiled  feebly. 


244  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  All  that  remains  is  this,"  said  the 
Babe.  "  Of  course  I  must  tell  those  other 
two  fellows  about  it,  the  two  I  mean  with 
whom  I  talked,  but  you  can  trust  them 
absolutely.  It  is  impossible  that  anyone 
else  should  ever  know  about  it." 

"  You  don't  think — ought  n't  I  to  tell 
them  all  ?  "  stammered  Feltham. 

The  Babe  frowned. 

"  Of  course  you  ought  not.  Why  the 
deuce  should  you  ?  About  the  money — 
it  must  be  divided  up  between  us  all. 
Six  into  twenty,  about  three  pound  ten 
each.  Rather  an  awkward  sum." 

"Why  six?" 

"  Because  there  were  six  of  us." 

"  I  can't  take  any." 

"  Your  feelings  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it,"  remarked  the  Babe.  "The 
money  in  the  pool  of  course  belongs  to 
everyone.  You  return  the  others'  shares 
of  that  £20  and  keep  your  own.  Well, 
I  '11  manage  it  somehow.  I  will  make 
absurd  bets,  seventy  to  one  in  shillings. 
That  will  surprise  nobody  :  I  often  do  it. 
Good  Lord,  it's  a  quarter  to  eight.  If 


The  Confession.  245 

you  're  going  into  Hall,  you  '11  be  very 
late,  and  so  shall  I  for  my  dinner.  I 
must  go.  Oh,  by  the  way,  did  you  lose 
much  altogether  ?  " 

"  About  twenty-five  pounds." 

"Is  it,  is  it" — began  the  Babe.  "I 
mean,  are  you  in  a  hole?  If  so,  I  wish 
you  'd  let  me  lend  you  some  money. 
Why  should  n't  you  ?  No  ?  Are  you 
sure  you  don't  want  some  ?  It  's  no  use 
receiving  unpleasant  letters  from  one's 
father,  when  there  's  no  need.  Well  as 
you  like.  Good-night.  Come  round  and 
look  me  up  some  time  :  I  'm  on  the  next 
stair-case." 

Feltham  followed  him  to  the  door. 

"  I  can't  tell  you  what  I  feel,"  he  said 
huskily,  "but  I  am  not  ungrateful.  Half 
an  hour  ago  you  asked  me  to  shake  hands 
with  you.  Will  you  shake  hands  with 
me?" 

"  Why,  surely,"  said  the  Babe. 


XIX. — IN  THE  FIFTIES. 


He  sailed  his  little  paper  boats, 
And  when  the  folk  thought  scorn  of  that, 

He  spudded  up  the  waiting  worm 
And  yearned  towards  the  master's  hat. 

HOTCH-POTCH  VERSES. 


THE  Babe  went  off  to  dress  for  dinner 
much  relieved  in  mind.  Now  that  it  was 
over  he  confessed  to  himself  that  he  had 
been  quite  certain  that  Feltham  had 
cheated,  but  that  he  should  own  up  to  it, 
was  fine,  and  the  Babe  who  considered 
himself  totally  devoid  of  anything  which 
could  possibly  be  construed  into  moral 
courage,  respected  him  for  it.  He  also 
registered  a  vow  that  never  to  the  crack 
of  doom — which  cracked  three  days  after- 
wards— would  he  play  unlimited  Marmara 
again,  and  told  himself  that  he  was  not 
cut  out  for  the  sort  of  thing  that  he  had 
just  been  through,  and  that  he  was  glad 
it  was  over.  He  went  round  at  once  to 
tell  Broxton  and  Anstruther  what  had 
happened,  and  after  that  shook  the  whole 
246 


In  the  Fifties.  247 

affair  from  his  mind,  as  a  puppy  shakes 
itself  after  being  in  the  water. 

He  was,  naturally,  late  for  dinner,  and 
Mr.  Stewart  who  knew  the  value  of  soup 
and  also  the  habits  of  the  Babe,  had  not 
waited.  When  he  did  appear,  he  was,  of 
course,  perfectly  unabashed,  and  took  the 
bottom  of  the  table  with  unassuming  grace. 

"The  psychology  of  punctuality,"  he 
remarked,  "  is  a  most  interesting  study. 
Some  day  I  mean  to  study  it,  and  I 
shall  write  a  little  monograph  on  the 
subject  uniform  with  those  which  Sher- 
lock Holmes  wrote  on  tobacco  ash  and 
the  tails  of  cart  horses.  I  think  there 
must  be  a  punctuality  bacillus,  some- 
thing like  a  death-watch,  always  ticking, 
and  if  there  is  n't  one,  I  shall  invent  it. 
It  does  n't  take  to  me.  I  am  too  healthy." 

"  My  dear  Babe,"  said  the  Stewart, 
"  you  have  disappointed  me.  I  always 
hoped  that  you  were  the  one  person  I 
have  been  looking  for  so  long,  who  has 
never  been  punctual  ;  But  you  have 
been  punctual  to  my  knowledge  twice, 
once  on  an  occasion  in  the  Long " 


248  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  When  was  that  ? "  interrupted  the 
Babe.  "  I  don't  believe  it." 

"  On  a  memorable  occasion.  At  lunch 
in  your  own  rooms." 

The  Babe  caught  Reggie's  eye,  and 
looked  away. 

"  Oh,  yes." 

"And  as  Clytemnestra,  you  always 
killed  Agamemnon  with  ruthless  punctu- 
ality. I  was  always  hoping  to  hear  him 
scream  during  the  next  Chorus  but  one." 

"  I  did  the  screaming  for  him,"  said  the 
Babe  complacently,  "  except  on  the  first 
night.  He  could  only  scream  like  an 
empty  syphon." 

There  is  nothing  more  tragic  or  blood- 
curdling than  the  scream  of  an  empty 
syphon,"  said  Stewart.  "  It  shrieks  to 
you,  like  a  banshee  of  all  the  whisky  and 
soda  you  have  drunk.  The  only  thing 
that  could  shriek  worse  would  be  an  empty 
whisky  bottle,  and  that  can't  shriek  at  all. 
If  he  really  could  scream  like  that,  you 
robbed  him  of  a  chance  of  greatness  by 
screaming  for  him,  although  you  screamed 
very  well." 


In  the  Fifties.  249 

"  There  are  syphons  and  syphons,"  said 
the  Babe,  "  he  screamed  like  an  empty 
but  undervitalised  one,  which  had  never 
really  been  full." 

"  Babe,  if  you  talk  about  undervitalised 
syphons  during  fish,"  said  Reggie,  "you 
will  drive  us  all  mad,  before  the  end  of 
dinner." 

"  Going  mad,"  said  Mr.  Stewart,  "  is  an 
effort  of  will.  I  could  go  mad  in  a  min- 
ute if  I  wished,  and  the  Babe  certainly 
determined  to  go  mad  when  he  was  yet  a 
boy.  No  offence  meant,  Babe.  I  can  con- 
fidently state  that  during  the  three  years 
I  have  known  him,  he  has  never  for  a 
moment  seemed  to  be  really  sane." 

"  I  was  perfectly  sane  when  I  settled 
to  go  in  for  the  tripos,"  said  the  Babe. 

"You  never  settled  to  do  anything  of 
the  kind.  You  think  you  did  and  it 
is  one  of  your  wildest  delusions." 

"  Secondly  I  was  sane,"  said  the  Babe, 
"when  I—" 

"  No  you  were  n't,"  put  in  Reggie. 

"  Reggie»  don't  be  like  Longridge. 
But  you  are  quite  right.  I  was  n't  sane 


250  The  Babe,  B.A. 

then,  though  I  thought  I  was  for  the  mo- 
ment." 

"  Longridge  is  better,  though  he  still 
has  a  large  piece  of  sticking  plaster  over 
his  nose,"  said  Mr.  Stewart.  "  He  came  to 
see  me  to-day.  He  insisted  on  arguing 
with  me  in  spite  of  my  expostulations. 
When  he  talks,  I  always  want  to  cover 
him  up,  as  one  covers  up  a  chirping 
canary." 

"  I  wish  you  would  do  it  some  day. 
With  a  piece  of  green  baize  you  know, 
and  a  hole  in  it  where  the  handle  of  the 
cage  comes  out." 

"  He  would  continue  to  make  confused 
noises  within,"  said  Reggie. 

"  He  always  makes  confused  noises," 
said  Mr.  Stewart  wearily.  "  Confused, 
ingenious,  noises.  Babe,  tell  me  if  that 
champagne  is  drinkable." 

The  Babe  drank  off  his  glass. 

"  Obviously,"  he  said.  "  But  it  's  no 
use  asking  me  :  all  champagne  seems  to 
me  delicious.  I  drink  Miller's  cheapest 
for  choice." 

A  small  withered  don  who  was  sitting 


In  the  Fifties.  251 

next  the  Babe,  and  had  not  previously 
spoken,  here  looked  up. 

"  A  nice,  dry,  light  wine,"  he  said. 

The  Babe  started  violently,  and  if  he 
had  not  just  emptied  his  glass  of  cham- 
pagne, he  would  certainly  have  spilled  it. 
He  explained  afterwards  that  he  really 
had  forgotten  that  anyone  was  occupying 
the  chair  on  the  right. 

This  curious  old  gentlemen,  one  of  the 
few  surviving  specimens  of  this  particular 
type  of  elderly  don  had  the  classical  name 
of  Moffat,  and  Mr.  Stewart  at  once  intro- 
duced him  to  the  Babe,  a  ceremony  which 
had  escaped  his  memory  before,  and  Mr. 
Moffat  who  had  been  shivering  on  the 
brink  of  conversation  all  dinner,  decided 
to  plunge  in. 

"  I  saw  your  performance  of  the  Aga- 
memnon last  week,"  he  said. 

"  I  hope  you  enjoyed  it,"  said  the  Babe 
politely. 

"  The  stage  is  not  what  it  was  in  me 
young  days,"  said  Mr.  Moffat. 

The  Babe  looked  interested  and  waited 
for  further  criticisms,  but  the  old  gentle- 


252  The  Babe,  B.A. 

man  returned  to  his  dinner  without  offer- 
ing any.  His  face  looked  as  if  it  was 
made  of  cast  iron,  painted  with  AspinalPs 
buff-coloured  enamel. 

There  was  a  short  silence,  and  Mr. 
Stewart,  looking  up,  saw  that  the  Babe 
was  fighting  like  a  man  against  an  inward 
convulsion  of  laughter.  His  face  changed 
from  pink  to  red,  and  a  vein  stood  out  on 
his  usually  unwrinkled  brow.  Stewart 
knew  that  when  the  Babe  had  a  fit  of  the 
giggles  it  was,  so  to  speak,  no  laughing 
matter,  and  he  made  things  worse  by  ask- 
ing Mr.  Moffat  how  his  sister  was.  At 
this  point  the  Babe  left  the  room  with  a 
rapid,  uneven  step,  and  he  was  heard  to 
plunge  violently  into  the  dishes  outside. 
Stewart  had  been  particularly  unfortunate 
in  his  choice  of  a  subject,  because  what 
had  started  the  Babe  off,  was  the  very 
thought  that  Mr.  Moffat's  sister  was  no 
doubt  the  original  Miss  Moffat,  and  he  had 
been  rashly  indulging  in  wild  conjectures  as 
to  what  would  happen  if  he  said  suddenly  : 

"  I  believe  your  sister  does  n't  like 
spiders.  " 


In  the  Fifties.  253 

Mr.  M  off  at  had  resumed  the  subject 
of  the  Greek  play  when  the  Babe  returned 
—he  seemed  not  to  have  noticed  his  ill- 
mannered  exit — and  was  finding  fault  with 
the  chorus,  particularly  with  the  leader, 
who,  in  the  person  of  Reggie,  was  sitting 
opposite  him.  Of  this,  however,  he  had 
not  the  slightest  idea. 

"  I  call  them  a  dowdy  crew,"  he  said. 
"  They  were  dressed  like  old  baize  doors. 
Not  me  idea  of  a  chorus  at  all.  But  it 
was  all  very  creditable,  very  creditable 
indeed,  and  we  have  to  thank  me  young 
friend  here  for  a  very  fine  performance  of 
Clytemnestra.  Why,  me  sister" — here 
the  Babe  gasped  for  a  moment  like  a 
drowning  man,  but  recovered  himself 
bravely — "  me  sister  came  down  next 
morning  at  breakfast,  and  said  she  'd 
hardly  been  able  to  sleep  a  wink,  hardly 
a  wink,  for  thinking  of  Clytemnestra." 

The  Babe  made  a  violent  effort  and 
checked  himself. 

"  I  'in  so  sorry,"  he  said,  with  his  most 
engaging  manner.  "  I  hope  you  will 
apologise  to  her  for  me," 


254  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  Not  at  all,  not  at  all,"  said  Mr.  Moffat. 
"  It 's  me  own  opinion  she  slept  far  more 
than  she  knew.  But  she  was  always  ner- 
vous,"— the  Babe  bit  his  tongue — "  easily 
upset.  A  very  good  pheasant,  Mr.  Stew- 
art, a  very  good  pheasant.  Thank  ye, 
yes,  a  glass  of  champagne.  A  glass  of 
wine  with  you,  heh,  heh,  Clytemnestra." 

Mr.  Moffat,  as  the  Babe  allowed  after- 
wards, was  a  very  pleasant  old  gentleman. 
When  dinner  was  over  and  he  had  settled 
himself  into  an  arm-chair  by  the  fire, 
smoking  one  of  Stewart's  strongest  cigars, 
he  told  several  stories  about  the  old  gene- 
ration of  dons  whom  he  had  known. 

"  There  was  an  old  fellow  of  King's" 
he  was  saying,  "in  me  undergraduate 
days,  who  must  have  been  eighty,  and 
never  a  night  had  he  spent  out  of  Cam- 
bridge since  he  came  up  as  an  under- 
graduate. An  infidel  old  lot  he  was. 
Many  a  time  I  Ve  seen  him  in  the  even- 
ing, when  the  worms  were  come  out  on 
the  grass  plot,  hobbling  about  and  try- 
ing to  kill  them  with  the  point  of  his 
stick.  He  used  to  talk  to  them  and  make 


In  the  Fifties.  255 

faces  at  them  and  say,  '  Ah,  damn  you. 
You  haven't  got  me  yet.'  A  queer  lot 
they  all  were,  not  the  worms  I  mean,  heh, 
hen,  but  the  old  dons.  There  were  two 
others  who  had  been  great  mathemati- 
cians in  their  time,  and  they  used  to  spend 
their  evenings  together  doing,  what  do 
you  think  ?  Making  paper  boats,  sir, 
which  they  went  and  sailed  on  the  Cam 
next  day.  They  would  start  them  from 
the  King's  bridge,  and  sail  them  down 
to  the  willow  at  the  other  end  of  the 
lawn.  And  such  quarrels  as  they  had 
over  which  had  won  !  One  of  them  one 
morning,  his  name  was  Jenkinson,  if  I  'm 
not  mistaken,  an  old  Yorkshireman,  got 
so  heated  over  it, — for  he  said  the  other 
boat  had  fouled  his,  as  if  they  were  ra- 
cing for  a  cup, — that  he  went  for  the  other 
man,  by  gad,  sir,  he  went  for  him,  and 
tried  to  push  him  into  the  river.  But  the 
other — his  name  was  Keggs — was  too 
quick  for  him,  and  stepped  out  of  the 
way,  and  head  over  ears  into  the  river 
went  Jenkinson  himself,  being  unable  to 
stop  himself,  sir,  by  reason  of  the  impetus 


256  The  Babe,  B.A. 

he  had  got  up.  The  river  is  n't  over  deep, 
there,  as  you  know,  perhaps  two  feet  deep, 
and  he  stood  up  as  soon  as  he  could  find 
his  feet  and  bawled  out :  '  Ah  misdoot 
ye  Ve  drooned  me,  Keggs.' ' 

The  Babe  was  delighted. 

"  Do  tell  me  some  more,"  he  said,  when 
Mr.  Moffat  had  finished  laughing  himself, 
which  he  did  in  a  silent,  internal  manner. 

"  Ah,  some  of  those  old  fellows  did 
things  not  quite  fit  for  boys  to  hear  about. 
Maxima  reverentia,  eh,  Mr.  Stewart  ?  But 
there  was  an  Irishman,  a  fellow  of  Clare 
too,  in  my  time.  I  might  tell  you  about 
him  ;  he  used  to  live  in  the  rooms  above 
the  gate.  He  had  a  quarrel  with  the 
Master,  and  as  often  as  the  Master  went 
in  and  out  of  the  gate,  egad,  the  old  chap 
would  try  to  spit  on  his  head.  If  the 
Master  was  out  to  dinner,  he  would  wait 
up,  sitting  in  his  window  till  he  came 
back,  be  it  eleven  o'clock  or  twelve,  or 
later  than  that.  At  last  the  Master  had 
to  put  up  an  umbrella  when  he  walked 
under  the  gate  of  his  own  college  and 
then  the  old  fellow  would  shout  out, 


In  the  Filties.  257 

"  Come,  out  o'  that,  ye  ould  divil,  and 
let  me  get  at  ye.'  A  disreputable  old 
crew  they  were  ! — Ah  well,  it 's  half-past 
ten.  Eleven  's  me  bedtime,  and  I  must 
be  going.  Good-night  to  you  Mr.  Stewart, 
and  many  thanks  for  your  kind  hospital- 
ity. And  good-night  to  you,  sir,"  he 
said  turning  to  the  Babe  ;  "  I  heard  them 
shout  '  Clytemnestra,  good  old  Clytemnes- 
tra,'  after  you  all  down  the  street.  And 
you  deserved  an'  ovation,  sir,  you  richly 
deserved  an  ovation,  and  I  'm  glad  you 
got  it." 

After  Mr.  Moffat's  departure,  they  set- 
tled down  again,  and  Stewart  remarked  : 

"You  've  made  a  conquest,  Babe.  But 
you  behaved  abominably  during  dinner." 

"  I  could  n't  help  it.  I  could  think  of 
nothing  but  Miss  Moffat.  On  the  top 
of  that  you  enquired  about  his  sister.  I 
ask  you,  what  was  I  to  do  ? " 

"  You  need  n't  have  danced  in  the  dishes 
outside,"  said  Reggie. 

"  I  only  danced  in  the  soup,  and  we  'd 
finished  with  the  soup.  And  there 's  a 
soupcon  of  it  on  my — " 

'7 


258  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  Shut  up." 

"  Pumps,"  continued  the  Babe.  "  May 
I  have  some  whisky  ?  Thanks.  For 
what  I  'm  going  to  receive.  What  a 
funny  undergraduate  Moffat  must  have 
been." 

"  I  believe  he  was  born  like  that,"  said 
Stewart.  "  I  know  when  I  came  up,  ten 
years  ago,  he  was  just  the  same.  That 's 
the  best  of  getting  old  early  :  you  don't 
change  any  more." 

"That's  one  for  you,  Babe,"  remarked 
Reggie. 

"  The  Babe  is  the  imperishable  child," 
said  Stewart. 

"You  called  me  a  man  of  the  world 
the  other  day,"  said  the  Babe  in  self- 
defence. 

"  I  think  not." 

"  You  did  really.  However,  we  '11  pass 
it  over." 

"  By  the  way,  Babe,  you  are  corrupt- 
ing the  youth  of  the  college.  Two  men 
went  into  their  lodgings  last  night  at  ten 
minutes  past  two.  It  transpired  that  they 
had  been  playing  cards  with  you." 


In  the  Fifties.  259 

"  Well,  it  is  true  that  I  was  playing 
cards  last  night.  But  they  could  have 
gone  away  earlier  if  they  had  wished." 

"  Your  fascinations  were  probably  too 
strong,"  said  Reggie. 

"  Now  you  're  being  personal,  and  pos- 
sibly sarcastic,"  said  the  Babe  with  dig- 
nity. "  I  must  go  to  bed.  I  was  late  last 
night." 

"  The  night  is  yet  young,  Babe,"  said 
Stewart. 

"  So  am  I.  But  if  I  don't  go,  I  shall 
continue  to  drink  whisky  and  soda,  and 
smoke." 

"You  are  welcome.  How  is  the  tripos 
work  progressing  ?  " 

"  Oh,  it 's  getting  on,"  said  the  Babe, 
hopefully.  "  A  little  at  a  time,  you  know, 
but  often.  I  'm  not  one  of  those  people 
who  can  work  five  hours  at  a  stretch." 

"  I  suppose  not.  Is  it  to  be  a  second 
or  a  third  ?  " 

"  I  believe  there  are  three  classes  in 
the  tripos,"  said  the  Babe  stiffly.  "  You 
have  only  mentioned  two.  Well,  yes, 
perhaps  one  of  your  small  cigarettes 


260  The  Babe,  B.A. 

would  not  hurt  me.  But  I  must  go  at 
eleven,  because  I  am  sapping.  Oh,  is  n't 
that  the  Shop  Girl  on  the  table  ?  There 
are  some  awfully  good  songs  in  it.  May 
I  go  and  get  my  banjo  ?" 

"  Do.  I  got  it  expressly  for  you  to 
sing." 

The  Babe  slept  his  usual  eight  and  a 
half  hours  that  night.  He  did  not  awake 
till  10.30. 


XX. — THE  BABE'S  MINOR  DIVERSIONS. 


Where  three  times  slipping  from  the  outside  edge 
I  bumped  the  ice  into  three  several  stars. 


TENNYSON. 


THE  frost  continued,  black  and  clean, 
and  the  Babe,  like  the  Polar  Bear,  thought 
it  would  be  nice  to  practise  skating.  He 
bought  himself  a  pair  of  Dowler  blades 
with  Mount  Charles  fittings,  which  he 
was  assured  by  an  enthusiastic  friend  were 
the  only  skates  with  which  it  was  possible 
to  preserve  one's  self-respect,  and  fondly 
hoped  that  self-respect  was  a  synonym 
for  balance.  Hitherto  his  accomplish- 
ments in  this  particular  line  had  been 
limited  to  what  is  popularly  known  as 
a  little  outside  edge,  but  Reggie  who 
was  a  first-rate  skater  undertook  his  edu- 
cation. The  Babe,  however,  refused  to 
leave  his  work  altogether  alone,  for  he 
was  beginning  to  be  seriously  touched 
with  the  sapping  epidemic,  and  he  and 
Reggie  used  to  set  off  about  one,  taking 
261 


262  The  Babe,  B.A. 

lunch  with  them,  to  the  skating  club,  of 
which  Reggie  was  a  member,  and  of 
which  the  Babe  was  not. 

Sykes  only  went  with  them  once,  and 
he  would  not  have  gone  then,  had  it  been 
possible  to  foresee  that  he  would  put 
skates  in  the  same  category  as  croquet 
balls  and  bathers,  but  it  was  soon  clear 
that  he  did.  He  made  a  bee-line  for  the 
unemployed  leg  of  Professor  Robertson, 
who  was  conscious  of  having  done  the 
counter  rocking  turn  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  without  the  semblance  of  a  scrape, 
and  brought  him  down  like  a  rabbit  shot 
through  the  head.  The  Babe  hurried 
across  to  the  assistance  of  the  disabled 
scientist,  and  dragged  Sykes  away.  But 
Sykes  had  his  principles,  and  as  he  dared 
not  use  threats  to  the  Babe,  he  implored, 
almost  commanded  him  not  to  put  on 
his  skates. 

41  Sykes,  dear,  you  are  a  little  un- 
reasonable," said  the  Babe  pacifically. 
"  Reggie,  what  are  we  to  do  with  Sykes  ? 
There  was  nearly  one  scientist  "the  less  in 
this  naughty  world." 


The  Babe's  Minor  Diversions.     263 

The  cab  in  which  they  had  driven  up, 
was  still  waiting,  and  at  Reggie's  sugges- 
tion Sykes  was  put  inside  and  driven  back 
to  the  stable  where  he  slept. 

The  Babe  wobbled  industriously  about, 
trying  to  skate  large,  and  not  deceive  him- 
self into  thinking  that  a  three  was  finished 
as  soon  as  he  had  made  the  turn,  and 
Reggie  practised  by  himself  round  an 
orange,  waiting  for  a  four  to  be  made  up, 
until  the  Babe  ate  it. 

About  the  third  day  the  Babe  was 
hopelessly  down  with  the  skating  fever, 
which  went  badly  with  the  sapping  epi- 
demic. He  took  his  skates  round  to 
King's  in  the  evening,  after  skating  all 
day,  for  the  sapping  epidemic  was  rapidly 
fleeing  from  him  like  a  beautiful  dream  at 
the  awakening,  and  skated  on  the  foun- 
tain ;  he  slid  about  his  carpet  trying  to 
get  his  pose  right  ;  he  put  his  looking- 
glass  on  the  floor  and  corrected  the  posi- 
tion of  the  unemployed  foot ;  he  traced 
grapevines  with  a  fork  on  the  tablecloth 
and  loops  with  wineglasses  ;  he  dreamed 
that  he  covered  a  pond  with  alternate 


264  The  Babe,  B.A. 

brackets  and  rocking  turns,  and  woke  up 
to  find  it  was  not  true  ;  he  even  watered 
the  pavement  outside  his  rooms  in  order 
to  get  a  little  piece  of  ice  big  enough  for 
a  turn,  with  the  only  result  that  the  bed- 
maker,  coming  in  next  morning,  fell 
heavily  over  it,  barking  her  elbow,  and 
breaking  the  greater  part  of  the  china  she 
was  carrying,  which,  as  the  Babe  said,  was 
happily  not  his.  Unfortunately,  however, 
the  porter  discovered  it,  as  he  brought 
round  letters,  and  ruthlessly  spread  salt 
thickly  over  it,  while  the  baffled  Babe 
looked  angrily  on  from  the  window. 

Snow  fell  after  this,  and  the  Babe  pro- 
posed tobogganing  down  Market  Hill. 
He  talked  it  over  with  Reggie,  and  they 
quarrelled  as  to  which  was  the  top  of  the 
hill  and  which  the  bottom,  "  for  it  would 
never  do,"  said  the  scrupulous  Babe,  "  to 
be  seen  tobogganing  up  hill,"  and  on  re- 
ferring the  matter  to  a  third  person,  it  was 
decided  that  the  hill  was  perfectly  level, 
so  that  they  were  both  right  and  both 
wrong,  whichever  way  you  chose  to  look 
at  the  question. 


The  Babe's  Minor  Diversions.     265 

The  King's  Comby  (which  is  an  abbre- 
viation for  Combination  and  means  Junior 
Combination  Room,  but  takes  place  in 
quite  a  different  apartment)  went  off  satis- 
factorily. The  Babe,  secure  in  the  knowl- 
edge that  there  was  no  rhyme  to  Babe  in 
the  English  language  (his  other  name, 
which  I  have  omitted  to  mention  before, 
was  Arbuthnot,  and  it  would  require  an 
excess  of  ingenuity  to  find  a  rhyme  even 
to  that),  made  scurrilous  allusions,  most 
of  them  quite  unfounded,  about  his  friends, 
in  vile  decasyllabics,  and  enjoyed  himself 
very  much.  Later  in  the  evening  he  with 
two  of  the  performers  in  the  original  play 
acted  a  short  skit  on  the  Agamemnon,  in 
which  he  parodied  himself  with  the  most 
ruthlessly  realistic  accuracy,  and  killed 
Agamemnon  in  a  sponging  tin  with  the 
aid  of  a  landing  net  and  a  pair  of  scissors. 
Last  of  all  he  disgraced  himself  by  stamp- 
ing out  in  the  snow,  in  enormous  letters, 
the  initials  of  a  popular  and  widely  known 
don  of  the  college,  with  such  thorough- 
ness, that  the  grass  has  never  grown  since, 
and  the  initials  are  to  be  seen  to  this  day, 


266  The  Babe,  B.A. 

to  witness  if  I  lie.  The  proceedings  ter- 
minated about  three  in  the  morning,  and 
the  Babe  was  left  waiting  for  some  minutes 
outside  the  porter's  lodge  at  Trinity,  while 
that  indignant  official  got  out  of  bed  to 
open  the  gate  to  him. 

The  Babe  ought  to  have  caught  a  bad 
cold,  but  with  an  indefensible  miscarriage 
of  justice,  it  was  the  porter  who  caught 
cold,  and  not  he,  and  the  Babe  observed 
cynically,  when  he  heard  of  it,  that  the 
memory  of  the  dog  in  the  nursery  rhyme, 
that  bit  a  man  from  Islington  in  the  leg, 
and  then  died  itself,  had  at  last  been 
avenged. 

Christmas,  the  Babe  announced,  fell 
early  that  year,  and  consequently  he  with 
several  others  stayed  up  till  Christmas 
Eve,  when  they  were  allowed  to  stay  no 
longer.  He  had  gone  up  to  town  for  two 
days  to  play  in  the  University  Rugby 
match,  which  he  had  been  largely  instru- 
mental in  winning,  for  the  ground  was  like 
a  buttered  ballroom  floor,  a  state  of 
things  which  the  Babe  for  some  occult 
reason  delighted  in,  and  for  an  hour's 


The  Babe's  Minor  Diversions.     267 

space  he  proceeded  to  slip  and  slide  and 
gloom  and  glance  in  a  way  that  seemed  to 
paralyse  his  opponents,  and  resulted  in 
Cambridge  winning  by  two  tries  and  a 
dropped  goal.  The  dropped  goal  was  the 
Babe's  doing :  theoretically  it  had  been 
impossible,  for  he  appeared  to  drop  it  out 
of  the  middle  of  a  scrimmage,  but  it 
counted  just  the  same,  and  he  had  also 
secured  one  of  the  tries.  The  Sportsman 
for  December  i5th  gives  a  full  account 
of  the  match  ;  also  the  Babe's  portrait,  in 
which  he  looks  like  a  cross  between  a 
forger  and  a  parricide. 

On  returning  to  Cambridge,  in  order  to 
be  up  to  date,  he  and  some  friends  went 
out  carol-singing  one  night,  visiting  the 
heads  of  colleges,  and  the  houses  of  the 
married  fellows.  The  Babe  acted  as  show- 
man and  spoke  broad  Somersetshire,  which 
interested  a  certain  philologist,  who  had 
no  suspicion  that  they  were  not  town  peo- 
ple, very  much.  The  Babe  declared  that 
his  father  and  grandfather  had  lived  in 
Barnwell  all  their  lives,  and  that  he  him- 
self had  never  even  attempted  to  set  foot 


268  The  Babe,  B.A. 

out  of  Cambridgeshire  except  once  on  the 
August  Bank  Holiday,  when  he  had  in- 
tended to  go  to  Hunstanton  but  had  missed 
the  train.  At  this  point,  however,  the 
philologist  winked  and  said  :  "  Mr.  Arbuth- 
not,  I  believe."  They  collected  in  all 
seventeen  shillings  and  eightpence,  which 
they  settled  should  be  given  to  a  local 
charity,  but  the  Babe,  as  he  counted  the 
amount  over  with  trembling,  avaricious 
fingers,  looked  up  with  a  brilliant  smile  as 
he  announced  the  total  and  exclaimed  : 
"  Not  a  penny  of  that  shall  the  poor  ever 
see."  They  also  got  what  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling calls  "  lashings  of  beer  "  at  several 
houses,  and  Bill  Sykes  who  had  been 
coached  to  carry  a  small  tin  into  which 
offerings  of  money  were  put  by  the  open- 
handed  householder,  was  without  a  shadow 
of  reason  filled  with  so  uncontrollable  a 
fit  of  rage  at  the  sight  of  the  cook  at  one 
of  the  houses  in  Selwyn  Gardens,  who 
patted  him  on  the  head,  and  called  him  a 
pretty  dear,  that  he  dropped  the  tin  mug, 
and  nipped  her  shrewdly  in  the  parts  about 
the  ankle. 


The  Babe's  Minor  Diversions.     269 

Reggie  parted  from  the  Babe  at  the 
station,  the  latter  going  to  London,  and 
Reggie  to  Licolnshire.  The  Babe  trav- 
elled first  because  he  said  Sykes  refused 
to  go  second  or  third,  but  that  intelligent 
animal,  poking  his  nose  out  from  under 
the  seat  just  as  the  guard  was  taking  the 
tickets,  was  ignominiously  hauled  out,  and 
compelled  to  go  in  the  van,  which  cannot 
be  considered  as  a  class  at  all. 


XXI. — A  DAY  IN  THE  LENT  TERM. 


O  this  drear  March  month. 

KlNGSLEY. 


JACK  MARSDEN  stopped  for  a  moment 
under  the  Babe's  window  and  called 


SB: 


Ba   -    abe 

and  the   Babe's  face   looked  out  vindic- 
tively. 

"  If   you    call    me   like   that    I    sha'n't 
answer,"  he  said.     "  You  're  not  in  Clare." 

So  Jack  went  in,  and  found  the  Babe 
curled  up  again  in  a  large  chair,  close  to 
the  fire,  working.  The  month  was  Feb- 
ruary, which  is  equivalent,  at  Cambridge, 
to  saying  that  it  was  raining — cold,  sleety, 
impossible  rain.  As  the  exact  day  of  the 
month  was  the  sixteenth,  it  followed  as  a 
corollary  that  it  had  been  raining  for  at 
least  sixteen  days,  and,  as  it  was  leap  year, 
it  would  continue  to  rain  thirteen  more. 
270 


A  Day  in  the  Lent  Term.     271 

"Well?"  said  the  Babe  unencourag- 
ingly.  He  had  gone  to  bed  early  the 
night  before,  and  the  consequent  length 
of  the  morning  made  him  rather  cross. 

"  Oh  nothing.  It 's  raining,  you  know. 
The  Sportsman  says  that  Jupiter  Pluvius 
is  in  the  ascendant  still." 

"  He  sends  the  snow  in  summer, 
He  sends  the  frost  in  May 
To  nip  the  apple-blossoms, 
And  spoil  our  games  of  play," 

quoted  the  Babe. 

"Just  so,  and  he  doesn't  neglect  to 
send  the  rain  in  February.  I  've  just 
come  back  from  King's.  Reggie  's  in  a 
bad  temper,  almost  as  bad  as  you." 

"Why?" 

"  Weather,  chiefly.  He  says  it  would 
be  grovelling  flattery  to  call  it  beastly." 

"  Reggie  is  given  to  making  truisms," 
said  the  Babe  turning  over  the  page. 
"Jack,  I  wish  you'd  go  away.  I  want  to 
work.  Besides,  you  're  so  devilish  cheer- 
ful, and  I  'm  not." 

"  Sorry  to  hear  it.     Oh,  yes,  and  Reggie 


272  The  Babe,  B.A. 

told  me  to  remind  you  that  you  are  play- 
ing tennis  with  him  at  twelve.  He  's  got 
the  New  Court." 

The  Babe  brightened  up  :  there  was  an 
hour  less  of  morning. 

"  Hurrah  !  that  will  suit  me  excellently. 
Many  thanks,  and  please  go  away.  Good- 
bye." 

Stewart  confessed  that  the  Babe  had  sur- 
prised him.  Most  people  who  knew  the 
Babe  were  never  surprised  at  him,  because 
they  always  expected  him  to  do  something 
unexpected.  But  no  one  had  ever  sup- 
posed that  he  would  do  anything  so  unex- 
pected as  to  work  steadily  every  day.  It 
would  not  have  been  so  surprising  if  he 
had  worked  twelve  hours  a  day  twice  a 
week,  but  that  he  should  work  four  hours 
every  day,  upset  all  preconceived  ideas 
about  him.  He  had  done  so  for  a  full 
month,  and  really  there  seemed  no  reason 
now  why  he  should  stop.  He  got  up  be- 
fore nine,  and  he  worked  from  ten  till  one  : 
at  one  he  would  be  himself  again  till  six, 
but  he  would  work  from  six  till  seven. 
Stewart  considered  this  exhibition  as  a 


A  Day  in  the  Lent  Term.     273 

striking  imitation  by  Nature  of  Mr.  R.  L. 
Stevenson's  Jekyll  and  Hyde  :  he  had  not 
clearly  realised  before  that  the  Babe  had 
a  dual  nature.  Just  now  he  considered 
Hyde  to  be  painfully  predominant,  for 
that  the  Babe  should  cease  being  absurd 
for  four  hours  a  day  seemed  to  him  a 
sacrifice  of  the  best  possibilities  of  his 
nature. 

But  the  Babe,  like  Mr.  Gladstone  in 
one  thing  more,  threw  off  all  thoughts  of 
such  matters,  except  during  work  hours, 
and  having  determined  to  put  in  an  extra 
hour  in  the  afternoon,  to  make  up  for  ten- 
nis in  the  morning,  he  trotted  off  through 
the  dripping,  drizzling  rain  to  the  tennis 
court  in  the  best  of  spirits. 

He  went  back  to  lunch  with  Reggie 
in  King's  Hall  and  as,  contrary  to  all 
precedent,  the  rain  had  stopped,  they  went 
for  a  walk  afterwards  round  two  or  three 
football  grounds,  to  see  what  was  going 
on,  and  give  Mr.  Sykes  an  airing.  Scratch 
games  seemed  the  order  of  the  day,  and 
they  "  took  situations  "  on  outside  wings 
opposite  each  other  for  a  few  minutes  in 


274  The  Babe,  B.A. 

the  game  on  the  King's  ground,  until  Reg- 
gie charged  the  Babe  and  knocked  him 
down,  after  which  they  retired,  dirty,  but 
invigorated.  Then  they  turned  into  the 
tennis  court  again  for  a  while,  and  so  by 
Burrell's  Walk  across  the  town  bridge,  and 
back  into  Trinity  Street,  looked  in  at  the 
shop  windows,  which  are  perhaps  less  al- 
luring than  any  others  in  the  kingdom,  and 
admired  the  preparations  for  diverting  the 
sewerage  of  the  town  from  the  Cam. 

"  But  how," said  the  Babe,  "our  college 
boats  will  be  able  to  row  in  a  perfectly 
empty  river  bed,  is  more  than  I  feel  fit  to 
tell  you." 

"They'll  keep  up  the  water  by  shutting 
the  locks,"  said  Reggie,  vaguely. 

"  But  no  shutting  of  locks,  Reggie,  will 
ever  repair  the  drought  caused  by  the  ces- 
sation of  the  drains.  There  's  the  Master 
of  Trinity.  Take  off  your  hat  :  he  won't 
see  you.  I  really  wish  Sykes  would  n't 
always  smell  Masters  of  colleges.  It 
makes  them  nervous  ;  they  think  indirectly 
that  it 's  my  fault.  Bill,  you  idiot,  come 
here ! " 


A  Day  in  the  Lent  Term.     275 

Bill  having  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
there  were  not  sufficient  grounds  to  war- 
rant the  Master's  arrest,  reluctantly  dis- 
missed the  case,  though  he  would  have 
liked  bail,  and  trotted  after  the  Babe. 
The  latter  had  just  discovered  that  life 
was  not  worth  living  without  a  minimum 
thermometer  which  he  saw  in  a  chemist's 
window,  and  had  to  go  and  buy  it. 

They  passed  up  to  the  left  of  Whewell's 
Court,  by  the  churchyard  without  a  church, 
and  into  Jesus  Lane  in  order  to  deposit 
Sykes  again  at  his  stables,  and  then,  as 
tea-time  was  approaching,  turned  back 
towards  Trinity. 

"  And  for  our  tea,"  said  the  Babe,  "  we 
will  go  to  the  Pitt,  where  it  may  be  had 
cheaply  and  comfortably,  and  we  can  read 
the  telegrams,  which  as  far  as  I  have  ob- 
served, deal  exclusively  with  steeplechase 
races,  and  the  state  of  the  money  market. 
I  noticed  that  money  was  easier  yester- 
day. I  am  so  glad.  It  has  been  terribly 
difficult  lately.  But  if  it  is  easier,  no 
doubt  the  financial  crisis  between  me  and 
my  father,  which  I  expect  at  the  end  of 


276  The  Babe,  B.A. 

this  term,  will  be  more  capable  of  adjust- 
ment. At  present  I  fear  my  creditors 
will  find  me  like  moist  sugar,  fourpence 
the  pound.  Do  you  suppose  there  are  any 
races  going  on  at  Newmarket  ?  We 
might  drive  over :  I  feel  as  if  a  little  car- 
riage exercise  would  do  me  good.  Here 's 
Jim.  Jim  always  knows  about  races.  He 
was  born,  I  mean  dropped,  at  Esher.  Jim, 
is  there  any  racing  going  on  at  Newmar- 
ket ?  Why  do  you  look  so  disgusted  ?  " 

"  It 's  so  likely  that  flat  races  should  be 
going  on  now,"  said  Jim. 

"  Oh,  well,  it  can't  be  helped,"  said  the 
Babe.  "  What  nice  brown  boots  you  Ve 
got.  Have  you  been  out  on  your  gee- 
gee?" 

"  Looks  rather  like  it" 

"  I  thought  so,"  said  the  Babe.  "  We  're 
going  to  have  tea.  Do  you  know  Reggie  ? 
Jim,  Reggie,  Reggie,  Jim." 

"  Met  before,"  said  Jim.  "  Ta,  ta,  Babe. 
I  Ve  got  a  coach  at  four." 

The  Babe  according  to  custom  weighed 
and  measured  himself,  found  as  usual  that 
no  change  had  taken  place  since  yesterday, 


A  Day  in  the  Lent  Term.     277 

put  his  hat  on  the  head  of  the  bust  of  Pitt, 
whence  it  clattered  on  to  the  floor,  let  the 
door  into  the  smoking  room  swing  to  in 
Reggie's  face,  and  ordered  tea.  A  group 
of  three  or  four  men  before  the  fire  were 
talking  about  someone  called  Pocohantas, 
who  turned  out  on  enquiry  to  be  a  horse, 
and  the  Babe  expressed  himself  willing  to 
lay  current  odds  about  anything  in  the 
world. 

He  and  Reggie  strolled  back  in  the 
dusk,  and  parted  at  the  gate  of  Trinity. 
The  Babe  went  to  work  till  Hall,  and  after 
Hall  played  picquet  with  Anstruther, 
whom  he  fleeced,  capotting  him  once  and 
repiquing  him  twice  in  an  hour,  and  dis- 
cussed with  him  the  extraordinary  dulness 
of  the  Lent  term,  and  the  impossibility  of 
making  it  any  livelier. 

"  It 's  a  sort  of  close  time,"  said  the 
Babe,  "  for  things  of  interest.  I  don't 
know  why  it  should  be  so,  but  every  day 
is  exactly  like  every  other  day,  and  they 
are  all  dull.  I  feel  eclipsed  all  the  Lent 
term.  I  make  a  show  of  gaiety,  but  it  is 
all  hollow.  I  suppose  really  one  does  de- 


278  The  Babe,  B.A. 

pend  a  good  deal  on  things  like  cricket 
and  football,  and  fine  weather.  One 
does  n't  know  it  at  the  time,  but  one 
misses  them  when  they  are  not  there." 

"  You  've  taken  to  sapping  :  you  ought 
n't  to  mind." 

"  On  the  contrary  I  mind  all  the  more. 
When  I  've  done  a  morning's  work,  I  come 
out  fizzing  with  being  corked  up  so  long, 
and  nothing  happens  to  my  fizz.  It  loses 
itself  in  the  empty  and  infinite  air." 

"  Don't  be  poetical,  Babe." 

"  For  instance,"  continued  the  Babe, 
"  what  am  I  to  do  now  ?  I  've  had  enough 
picquet,  and  I  Ve  got  nothing  to  say,  and 
I  've  worked  enough,  and  I  don't  want  to 
go  to  bed." 

"  All  right,  don't  go  to  bed.  Sit  and 
calk  to  me." 

"But  I  don't  want  to  talk,"  said  the 
Babe  volubly.  "  There  's  nothing  to  talk 
about.  I  've  played  tennis,  I  've  worked, 
I  've  taken  Sykes  for  a  walk,  and  that 's  all. 
Really  one  must  he  extraordinarily  clever 
to  be  able  to  talk  day  after  day  all  one's 
life.  How  does  one  do  it  ?  A  priori, 


A  Day  in  the  Lent  Term.     279 

one  would  expect  to  have  said  all  the 
things  one  has  got  to  say  by  the  time  one 
was  twenty,  and  I  'm  twenty-one.  Yet 
I  am  not  dumb  yet.  One  does  n't  talk 
about  things  that  happen,  and  most  peo- 
ple, and  I  am  one  myself,  never  think  at 
all,  so  they  can't  talk  about  what  they  are 
thinking  about.  Give  me  some  whisky 
and  soda  ;  perhaps,  as  Mulvaney  says,  it 
will  put  a  thought  into  me.  I  hate  Mul- 
vaney worse  than  I  hate  Learoyd,  and  that 
is  worse  than  I  hate  Ortheris.  As  for  Mrs. 
Hawksbee,  that 's  another  story.  Soda  is 
like  a  solution  of  pin  points.  It  pricks 
one  all  over  the  mouth.  I  wonder  if  it 
would  do  as  well  to  put  ordinary  pins  into 
water.  I  shall  ask  Longridge  what  he 
thinks  about  it.  Now  he's  an  exception, 
he  does  nothing  but  think  ;  you  can  hear 
the  machinery  clicking  inside  him.  He 
thinks  about  all  the  ingenious  things  he  's 
going  to  do  and  all  the  ingenious  things 
nobody  else  would  think  of  doing.  They 
don't  come  off  mostly,  because  the  door 
hits  him  in  the  face,  or  the  gum  won't 
stick.  Thanks.  When  !  Do  you  know 


280  The  Babe,  B.A. 

Stewart  is  beginning  to  think  I  shall  get 
through  the  tripos,  and  he  warned  me  not 
to  work  too  much.  He  says  that  I  shall, 
by  all  precedents  in  such  matters,  get 
brain  fever  and  consumption,  and  that  my 
sorrowing  friends  will  kneel  round  my  ex- 
piring bedside — you  see  what  I  mean — on 
the  morning  the  tripos  lists  are  announced 
and  shout  out  above  the  increasing  clamour 
of  my  death  rattle,  '  You  are  Senior  His- 
torian,' and  that  my  reform  from  the  wild 
young  spark  to  the  pale  emaciated  student, 
will  all  date  from  one  evening  last  year 
at  the  Savoy,  when  he  said  he  would  only 
take  the  longest  odds  if  he  had  to  bet  on 
my  getting  through." 

"  And  did  you  give  him  long  odds  ?  " 
"  No  :  I  would  n't  have  bet  against  my- 
self even  then,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
one  never  knows  how  much  one  can 
try  until  one  has  tried.  If  you  don't  be- 
lieve in  yourself,  nobody  will  believe  in 
you.  Not  that  I  do  believe  in  myself  for 
a  moment,  any  more  than  I  believe  in,  in 
anybody  else.  You  see,  six  months  ago  I 
should  n't  have  believed  it  possible  that  I 


A  Day  in  the  Lent  Term.     281 

should  work  steadily  four  hours  or  more  a 
day.  I  think  I  shall  take  to  spectacles, 
and  go  for  grinds  on  the  Grantchester 
road  ;  I  believe  that 's  the  chic  thing  to  do 
in  sapping  circles.  Fancy  waking  up  some 
morning  to  find  oneself  in  a  sapping  circle. 
I  wonder  what  Saps  think  about." 

"  Sap,  probably.  Oh,  yes,  certainly  sap. 
Either  Thucydides,  or  binomial  theories, 
or  is  it  theorems  or  aortas.  Babe,  let  us 
meditate  on  aortas  for  a  time." 

"  By  all  means.  I  wonder  what  an  aorta 
is.  Yes,  thanks,  but  only  a  mouthful,  as 
Reggie  says.  That 's  because  he  has  such 
a  big  mouth.  I  say,  I  wish  I  had  an  object 
in  life :  it  must  be  so  interesting." 

"  Liver,"  said  Anstruther  brutally,  "  take 
a  pill.  What  do  you  want  an  object  in 
life  for?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  It  would  be  some- 
thing to  play  about  with,  when  one  did  n't 
want  to  talk  or  see  other  people.  I  sup- 
pose a  conscience  would  do  as  well.  I 
have  n't  either." 

"You  said  ten  minutes  ago  that  you 
did  n't  want  to  talk.  Since  then  I  have 


282  The  Babe,  B.A. 

only  been  able  to  get  in  an  occasional 
word  edgewise." 

The  Babe  laughed,  and  finished  his 
whisky. 

"Yes,  I'm  very  sorry.  It's  a  great 
misfortune  not  to  be  able  to  be  silent. 
It 's  not  my  fault.  I  sha'n't  take  a  pill ;  I 
shall  go  to  bed  instead.  I  always  used  to 
think  that  '  the  grave  as  little  as  my  bed ' 
was  an  independent  sentence  and  meant 
literally  what  it  said.  Not  that  it  meant 
much.  Do  you  ever  lie  awake  ?  " 

"  No,  of  course  not :  I  can  understand 
the  difficulty  of  keeping  awake,  but  not  of 
going  to  sleep." 

"  I  lay  awake  nearly  five  minutes  last 
night,"  said  the  Babe,  "  and  so  I  thought 
I  was  going  to  be  ill  !  But  I  was  n't,  at 
least  not  at  present.  I  suppose  people 
who  lie  awake,  think." 

"  I  always  fancied  they  only  swore." 

"  In  that  case  there  would  be  nothing 
gained.  I  'm  getting  silly.  Good-night." 


XXII. — BEFORE  THE  TRIPOS. 


And  when  the  bowler  sent  a  ball 

Off  which  none  else  would  try  to  score. 

He  did  not  seem  to  care  at  all, 
But  hit  it  very  high  for  four. 

HOTCH-POTCH  VERSES. 


THE  Babe  was  lying  at  the  bottom  of  a 
Canadian  canoe  on  his  back,  singing  low 
to  his  beloved.  At  least  he  was  not  ex- 
actly singing,  but  swearing  gently  at  Sykes, 
who  had  laid  himself  down  on  his  stomach 
and  the  day  was  too  hot  to  have  bulldogs 
on  one's  stomach.  The  Babe  about  an 
hour  ago  had  landed  to  see  if  Reggie  was 
in,  and  finding  his  rooms  empty  and  un- 
garnished,  tied  his  canoe  up  to  the  bank 
to  sleep  and  read  a  little  Ravenshoe  for 
an  hour,  but  it  had  slipped  its  cable  and 
as  he  had  left  the  paddle  on  the  bank  it 
had  required  only  a  few  moments  reflec- 
tion to  convince  him  that  he  was  hope- 
lessly and  completely  at  the  mercy  of  the 
winds  and  waters,  like  Danae,  the  mother 
of  Perseus,  in  her  wooden  chest,  and  that 
283 


284  The  Babe,  B.A. 

his  destiny  was  no  longer  in  his  own  hands. 
As  then,  there  was  nothing  whatever  to  be 
done,  he  did  nothing  in  serene  content. 
He  w*ould  soon  bump  against  the  arches 
of  Clare  Bridge,  but  until  that  happened 
there  was  no  step  he  could  possibly  take. 

It  was  just  three  days  before  his  tripos  be- 
gan, and  the  Babe,  with  a  wisdom  beyond 
his  years,  was  taking  three  complete  holi- 
days. He  argued  that  as  it  already  seemed 
to  him  that  his  brain  was  one  turbid  mass 
of  undigested  facts  and  dates,  the  best 
thing  he  could  do  was  not  to  swallow  more, 
but  to  let  what  he  had  settle  down  a  little. 
For  a  fortnight  before  he  had  been  work- 
ing really  hard,  going  over  the  ground 
again,  and  for  the  next  three  days  he 
meant  neither  to  think  nor  do  anything 
whatever.  As  he  expressed  it  himself 
after  last  Sunday  morning  chapel,  "  I  am 
going,"  he  said  "  to  eat  and  sleep  and  do 
and  be  simply  that  which  pleases  me." 

He  was  roused  by  a  loud  injured  voice 
not  far  off  shouting,  "  Look  ahead,  sir," 
and  he  sat  up.  His  boat,  as  is  the  ineradi- 
cable habit  of  Canadian  canoes,  had  drifted 


Before  the  Tripos.  285 

broadside  across  the  river  and  was  fouling 
the  course  of  an  outrigger  which  was 
wanting  to  come  up. 

"  I  'm  very  sorry,"  shouted  the  Babe, 
"  but  I  've  lost  my  paddle.  Hallo,  Felt- 
ham,  is  that  you  ?" 

"  It 's  me,  Babe.  What  can  I  do  for 
you,  and  what  do  you  mean  by  fouling 
my  waterway  ?  Where  is  your  paddle  ?  " 

The  Babe  looked  round. 

"  Oh,  it 's  up  there  on  the  bank,  by  the 
King's  Bridge.  Can't  I  catch  hold  of  the 
tail  of  your  boat,  then  you  might  tow  me 
up  there  ?" 

"  All  right,  but  don't  call  it  a  tail,  as 
some  rowing  man  will  hear  you  and  have  a 
fit.  Let  me  get  clear.  Are  you  slacking, 
to-day?" 

"  Yes,  and  for  the  next  two  days.  My 
tripos  begins  on  Monday,  and  I  think 
that  if  I  do  nothing  for  a  day  or  two  I 
may  be  able  to  remember  again  who  the 
Electric  Sophia  was." 

"  Is  she  important  ?  She  sounds  as  if 
she  might  be  the  wife  of  the  man  who  dis- 

o 

covered  lightning." 


286  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  Don't  confuse  me  further,"  said  the 
Babe.  "  Where  are  you  off  to  ? " 

"  Oh,  up  the  river.  There  's  no  cricket 
to-day." 

"  I  did  n't  know  that  people  who  played 
cricket  ever  rowed." 

"  They  don't  for  the  most  part  :  but  I 
don't  consider  that  a  reason  for  not  doing 
so  if  I  wish." 

"  Are  you  playing  for  the  'Varsity  on 
Monday?" 

"  They  have  been  polite  enough  to  ask 
me." 

"  And  you  have  very  civilly  consented. 
Well,  good-bye." 

The  Babe  sat  in  his  canoe  for  half  an 
hour  or  more,  and  got  through  a  little 
Ravenshoe,  and  a  little  meditation.  The 
meditation  concerned  itself  chiefly  with 
Feltham,  who,  as  was  universally  acknowl- 
edged, was  the  best  of  good  fellows,  quiet, 
steady,  thoroughbred.  And  these  things 
gave  the  Babe  some  pleasure  not  ill-de- 
served, to  think  over,  for  Feltham  had 
been  known  primarily  as  a  friend  of  his. 
And  when  he  was  tired  of  meditating  he 


Before  the  Tripos.  287 

tied  up  his  canoe  again  and  walked  up  to 
the  King's  field,  for  his  college  was  play- 
ing King's  and  he  was  certain  of  finding 
company,  whichever  side  was  in.  It  turned 
out  that  King's  was  in  that  enviable  posi- 
tion, and  of  King's,  Reggie  and  a  careful 
little  man  in  spectacles.  Reggie  could 
not  by  the  most  partial  of  his  friends  be 
called  a  cricketer,  but  the  most  impartial 
of  his  enemies  would  have  had  to  confess 
that  he  often  made  a  great  many  runs. 
He  had  a  good  eye,  he  saw  the  ball  and 
he  helped  it  to  fulfil  its  destiny  by  hitting 
it  hard.  More  particularly  did  he  hit 
balls  on  the  off  which  ought  to  be  left 
alone,  and  he  always  hit  them  high  in  the 
air  over  long  slip's  head.  It  really  did 
not  seem  to  matter  where  long  slip  was 
placed,  for  he  always  hit  the  ball  over  his 
head,  and  out  of  reach.  Straight  balls  he 
subjected  to  a  curious  but  very  vigorous 
mowing  process,  which  took  them  swiftly 
past  the  umpire's  nose.  A  straight  yorker 
invariably  got  him  out,  if  he  knew  it  was 
a  yorker  and  tried  to  play  it,  so  that  when 
he  saw  one  coming  he  held  his  bat  per- 


288  The  Babe,  B.A. 

fectly  firm  and  rigid  and  quenched  it, 
but  if  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that  the 
ball  was  a  yorker  he  treated  it  with  cheer- 
ful contempt  and  hit  it  somewhere,  which 
surprised  no  one  more  than  himself.  It 
seemed  to  be  the  recognised  thing  that 
he  should  be  given  three  lives  as  at 
pool,  and,  as  at  pool,  if  he  used  them 
up  quickly,  he  was  frequently  allowed  to 
star,  and  have  two  more.  A  sort  of  extra 
square  leg,  specially  designed  for  his  un- 
doing, had  just  given  him  his  fourth  life 
when  the  Babe  appeared,  and  Reggie 
scored  three  runs  over  it.  The  field  luck- 
ily could  be  arranged  solely  with  a  view 
to  catching  him,  for  the  careful  little  man 
in  spectacles  only  scored  singles,  and  those 
by  hitting  balls  with  extreme  caution  just 
out  of  reach  of  cover-point. 

The  Babe  enjoyed  watching  cricket,  es- 
pecially the  sort  of  game  that  was  going 
on  now.  One  bowler  was  extremely  fast, 
the  other  incredibly  slow,  and  Reggie  hit 
them  both  in  the  air  with  perfect  impar- 
tiality, and  the  careful  little  man  played 
them  both  with  as  much  precision  and 
delicacy,  as  if  he  was  playing  spillikins. 


Before  the  Tripos.  289- 

However,  a  few  overs  later,  though  his 
own  score  was  small,  he  did  Reggie,  and 
so,  indirectly  his  side,  a  signal  service. 
The  latter  had  hit  a  fast  ball  almost  quite 
straight  up  in  the  air  and  extremely  high, 
and  they  both  started  on  a  forlorn  run. 
Point  and  wicket-keep  both  ran  to  it,  and 
the  careful  little  man  charged  violently  in 
between  them  exactly  at  the  crucial  mo- 
ment, as  they  were  both  standing  in  front 
of  his  wickets,  with  the  result  that  out  of 
the  midst  of  chaotic  confusion  the  ball  fell 
innocuously  to  the  ground.  The  careful 
little  man  went  to  the  pavilion  for  a  new 
pair  of  spectacles  after  being  given  "  not 
out"  for  obstructing  the  field,  which  he 
certainly  had  been  doing,  and  point  and 
wicket-keep  cursed  him  and  each  other, 
and  Reggie  thanked  them  all. 

This  was  the  last  ball  of  the  over,  so 
Reggie  still  had  the  bowling.  The  slow 
bowler  prepared  for  him  a  ball  with  an 
immeasurable  break  from  the  off  upon  it, 
but  Reggie  very  wisely  danced  gaily  out 
onto  the  middle  of  the  pitch,  turned 
straight  round  and  hit  it  so  severe  a  blow 
that  the  wicket-keep  in  whose  direction  it 


29o  The  Babe,  B.A. 

was  travelling  had  only  just  time  to  get 
out  of  the  way.  It  narrowly  missed  Reg- 
gie's own  wicket,  but  a  miss  is  as  good  as 
four  runs  when  it  is  hit  hard  enough,  and 
this  one  was. 

But  the  service  he  often  did  his  side, 
and  was  doing  now,  could  not  be  fairly 
measured  merely  by  the  runs  he  scored, 
for  the  demoralising  effect  he  always  had 
on  the  field  was  worth  fifty  extra.  After 
a  certain  number  of  catches  have  been 
missed,  and  a  large  number  of  balls  hit 
high  in  the  air  just  out  of  reach  of  a  field, 
a  side  begins  unconsciously  to  think  "  Kis- 
met "  and  withal  to  grow  discontented,  and 
aside  that  thinks  "  Kismet  "  is  lost. 

Reggie  was  out  seventh  wicket  down, 
having  made  sixty-two,  and  as  there  was 
pnly  another  half-hour  to  the  drawing  of 
stumps,  he  left  the  game,  and  walked 
down  with  the  Babe.  They  were  going 
to  dine  together  and  go  to  the  theatre  to 
see  a  touring  Mrs.  Tanqueray.  To  the 
Babe's  great  delight  the  "  theatrical  tuft- 
hair  "was  in  great  force,  and  between  the 
acts  he  wandered  about  in  the  passage 


Before  the  Tripos.  291 

listening  rapturously  to  the  fragments  of 
their  conversation. 

There  was  one  in  particular,  who  had 
sat  next  the  Babe,  markedly  worthy  of 
study.  His  gown  was  about  eighteen  in- 
ches long,  and  his  cap,  out  of  which  he 
had  carefully  abstracted  every  particle  of 
board,  drooped  gracefully  at  all  its  cor- 
ners. He  was  in  dress  clothes  with  a 
smoking  coat  (not  in  a  Norfolk  jacket,) 
and  he  wore  a  large  diamond  solitaire, 
and  a  red  cummerbund.  He  was  evi- 
dently a  king  among  his  kind,  and  several 
of  them  crowded  round  him  as  he  came 
out  between  the  acts  and  admired  him. 
They  called  him  "  Johnny,"  and  he  called 
them  "Johnny"  individually,  and  "John- 
nies "  collectively,  and  the  Babe  listened 
to  them  with  a  seraphic  expression  of  face. 

"  Arfly  parful,  is  n't  it  ?  I  say,  Johnny, 
give  me  a  light." 

"  Old  Redfarn's  put  up  a  notice  about 
not  smoking  in  the  passage.  I  shall  rag 
him  about  it." 

"That  gurl's  pretty  good,  isn't  she? 
Looks  rather  nice  too," 


The  Babe,  B.A. 


"  You  're  quite  mashed  on  her,  old  chap- 
pie. But  she  's  not  a  patch  on  Mrs.  Pat." 

"  Johnny  can't  think  of  anything  but 
Mrs.  Pat.  I  say,  let's  go  and  have  a 
drink." 

"  All  right.  Johnny  stands  drinks.  The 
gurl  at  the  bar's  an  awful  clipper." 

"  Johnny  will  drop  his  pipe  and  get  her 
to  pick  it  up  for  him." 

"  Well,  come  on,  you  Johnnies.  There  's 
only  ten  minutes.  Keep  an  eye  on 
Johnny." 

The  Babe's  eye  followed  them  as  they 
walked  off  to  the  bar,  with  rapturous 
enjoyment. 

"Aren't  they  heavenly?"  said  he  to 
Reggie.  "  Oh,  I  wish  I  was  like  that  ! 
It  must  be  so  nice  to  feel  that  one  is  the 
light  and  leading  of  the  whole  place  and 
really  knows  what  life  is.  I  wish  I  knew 
what  life  was.  I  wonder  how  they  get 
their  hair  to  stick  out  like  that.  How  I 
have  wasted  my  time  !  I  too  might  have 
been  a  Johnny  by  now,  if  I  'd  cultivated 
them.  Reggie,  do  come  to  the  bar  :  I 
want  to  gaze  and  gaze  on  them." 


Before  the  Tripos.  293 

But  Reggie  refused :  he  said  they  made 
him  sick,  and  the  Babe  told  him  that  he 
regarded  things  from  the  wrong  stand- 
point. 

"You  know,"  said  the  Babe,  "they've 
persuaded  each  other  that  they  are  the 
very  devils  of  fellows.  They  really 
believe  it.  What  a  thing  it  is  to  have 
faith.  They  will  talk  quite  fluently  to 
the  barmaid.  I  remember  so  well  trying 
to  see  whether  I  could.  I  could  n't :  I 
knew  I  could  n't  all  the  time.  I  have 
never  felt  so  hopelessly  bored  in  so  few 
minutes.  They  think  it's  wicked;  and 
they  think  that  they  rag  their  tutors. 
The  poor  tutors  are  men  of  no  percep- 
tion, for  they  have  n't  the  least  idea  they 
are  being  ragged.  There  they  all  come 
again.  Their  faces  shine  with  deviltry. 
Did  you  hear  them  talk  about  Mrs.  Pat  ? 
They  meant  Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell  you 
know— 

"  You  're  no  better,  Babe,"  said  Reggie, 
"  you  used  to  want  people  to  think  you 
wicked." 

"  Oh,  but  that 's  quite  different.     You 


294  The  Babe,  B.A. 

can't  say  that  I  was  ever  the  least  like  a 
Johnny.  I  never  had  the  courage.  Fancy 
being  as  brave  as  they  are,  and  oh,  fancy 
deliberately  sitting  down  and  taking  all 
the  stuffing  out  of  your  cap  in  order  to 
be  a  blood  !  " 

"  I  '11  take  yours  out,  if  you  '11  take 
mine,  Babe.  There  's  the  bell.  We  must 
go  in  again." 

The  Babe  went  to  see  Stewart  when 
he  went  back  to  Trinity.  The  latter 
thoroughly  approved  of  his  holiday. 

"  You  are  giving  yourself  a  little  space," 
he  said,  "  in  which  it  may  be  hoped  you 
will  forget,  or  rather  assimilate,  a  few  of 
the  useless  and  ugly  things  which  our 
system  of  examinations  has  compelled 
you  to  learn.  A  historian  is  not  a  person 
who  knows  masses  of  facts  and  dates, 
but  a  man  who  has  built  a  structure  upon 
them.  The  facts  are  the  scaffold,  which 
disappears  when  the  house  is  built.  And 
the  tripos  turns  out  a  quantity  of  promis- 
ing young  men  who  can  only  build  scaf- 
folds. I  wish  I  was  examining.  There 
should  be  no  questions  with  dates  in 


Before  the  Tripos.  295 

them,  and  they  should  all  begin  "  Trace 
the  tendency,"  or  "  Indicate  in  a  great 
many  words  the  influence." 

"  I  wish  I  felt  more  certain  about  my 
scaffold." 

"  My  dear  Babe,  don't  vex  your  soul. 
Possess  it  in  peace.  I  would  give  long 
odds  on  your  getting  through.  What  I 
did  not  expect  was  that  you  should  have 
taken  the  distasteful  steps  that  lead  to  so 
immaterial  a  result.  You  got  a  second 
in  your  last  May's  did  n't  you  ?  Do  let  us 
talk  of  something  a  little  more  interesting 
than  triposes." 

"  Well,  I  did  n't  introduce  the  subject," 
said  the  Babe. 

"  What  have  you  been  doing  this  even- 
ing?" 

"  I  Ve  just  been  to  the  Second  Mrs. 
Tanqueray  with  Reggie." 

"  An  interesting  medical  case,"  re- 
marked Stewart.  "  I  believe  the  author 
consulted  an  eminent  nerve  doctor,  as  to 
how  many  months'  living  with  Aubrey 
Tanqueray  would  drive  an  excitable 
female  to  suicide.  He  thought  six,  but 


296  The  Babe,  B.A. 

as  the  author  wished  her  to  do  it  in  less, 
he  had  to  introduce  other  incentives. 
Aubrey  Tanqueray  would  drive  me  to 
madness  in  a  week,  and  to  suicide  in 
eight  days.  He  handed  her  toast  at  the 
scene  at  breakfast,  as  if  he  was  giving  her 
a  slice  of  some  cardinal  virtue  with  the 
blessing  of  the  Pope  spread  on  it  like 
butter.  The  real  motif  of  the  play, 
though  the  British  public  have  n't  known 
it,  is  her  growing  despair  at  being  wedded 
to  him,  and  the  immediate  cause  is  the 
Second  Mr.  Tanqueray  s  noble  forgive- 
ness of  her  when  she  was  found  to  have 
tampered  with  the  letter  bag.  He  treated 
her  like  a  candidate  for  confirmation, 
instead  of  boxing  her  ears,  and  said  that 
the  incident  only  served  to  draw  them 
closer  together,  or  something  of  the  kind. 
Apparently  if  you  commit  a  sufficiently 
mean  action  towards  a  person  who  really 
loves  you,  he  will  be  delighted,  and  love 
you  the  more  for  it.  It  sounds  a  little 
Jesuitical,  baldly  stated.  Who  wrote  the 
play  ?  Pinero  was  n't  it.  Pinero  is  obvi- 
ously the  future  from  '  Pinsum,'  I  am  a  pin." 
The  Babe  laughed. 


Before  the  Tripos.  297 

"  I  did  n't  attend  to  the  play  much,"  he 
said.  "  There  was  an  undergraduate 

o 

sitting  next  me,  who  was  more  interest- 
ing. He  wore  a  red  cummerbund." 

"  Ah,  yes,"  murmured  Mr.  Stewart. 
"  The  kind  that  talks  to  the  female  in 
tobacconists'  shops,  and  sits  on  the  counter 
as  it  does  so.  Its  father  is  usually  one  of 
nature's  gentlemen,  who  has  married  a 
perfect  lady.  The  two  always  marry  each 
other,  and  in  the  next  generation  the  fe- 
males dress  in  Liberty  fabric,  and  the  males 
congregate  at  the  smaller  colleges.  They 
are  on  the  increase.  I  suppose  it 's  an  in- 
stance of  the  survival  of  the  filthiest." 

Mr.  Steward  rose  from  his  chair,  and 
crossed  over  to  the  window-seat  where 
the  Babe  was  sitting. 

"  What  can  I  do  to  amuse  you,  Babe?" 
he  said.  "  I  feel  that  it  is  the  duty  of  all 
your  friends  to  distract  your  thoughts  from 
all  subjects  for  the  next  two  days.  Shall 
I  play  cards  with  you — you  shall  teach  me — 
or  shall  we  talk  about  the  Epsom  meet- 
ing, or  the  A.D.C.  ?  I  suppose  you  are 
going  to  act  in  the  May  week  ?  Why  not 
act  Hamlet,  and  we  will  persuade  Long- 


298  The  Babe,  B.A. 

ridge  to  be  Ophelia.  There  is  something 
sublimely  inconsequent  in  the  way  Ophelia 
distributes  artificial  flowers  to  the  com- 
pany which  reminds  me  of  Longridge  in 
his  soberer  moments.  I  have  been  very 
much  tried  by  Longridge  to-night.  He 
asked  me  to  help  him  to  sing  glees  in  the 
Roundabout.  Can  you  imagine  Long- 
ridge and  me  sitting  side  by  side  in  the 
Roundabout  singing  "  Three  Blind  Mice  ?" 
I  could  imagine  it  so  vividly  that  I  did  n't 
go." 

The  Babe  laughed. 

"  You  can  give  me  whisky  and  soda, 
and  then  I  shall  go  to  bed.  It  is  twelve, 
and  I  must  practise  being  dressed  and 
breakfasted  by  nine.  Does  it  require 
much  practice  ?  " 

"  I  should  think  about  twenty  minutes 
every  morning.  What  is  the  use  of  doing 
a  thing  you  have  got  to  do,  before  you 
have  got  to  do  it  ?  It  is  like  cutting 
yourself  with  a  knife  to  accustom  your- 
self to  a  surgical  operation." 

"  There  are  points  of  similarity,"  said 
the  Babe.  "  I  shall  go  to  bed  now  for  all 
that,  as  soon  as  I  Ve  drunk  this." 


XXIII.— THE  LISTS. 


List,  O  list. 

SHAKESPEARE. 


THE  Babe  and  Reggie  were  sitting  out- 
side the  pavilion  at  Fenner's  watching  the 
University  against  the  gentlemen  of  Eng- 
land, who  as  the  Babe  said,  so  far  from 
sitting  at  home  at  ease  were  running  out 
to  Feltham's  slow  bowling  and  getting 
caught  and  stumped,  with  very  enjoyable 
frequency.  The  cricket  was  a  delightful 
mixture  of  a  fine  bowling  performance 
and  very  hard  hitting,  which  to  the  un- 
educated spectator  is  perhaps  the  most 
lively  of  all  to  watch.  Feltham  had  in 
fact,  from  the  Babe's  point  of  view,  just 
sent  down  the  ideal  over.  The  first  ball 
was  hit  out  of  the  ground  for  six,  the 
second  bowled  the  hitter  round  his  legs. 
The  third  ball  was  hit  by  the  incomer  for 
four,  and  the  fourth  for  four.  The  fifth 
ball  he  also  attempted  to  hit  as  hard  as  he 
could  to  square  leg,  and  he  was  caught  at 
299 


300  The  Babe,  B.A. 

point,  in  the  manner  of  a  catch  at  the 
wicket. 

The  Babe  tilted  his  hat  over  his  eyes, 
and  gave  a  happy  little  sigh. 

"  Reggie,  the  tripos  is  the  secret  of 
life,"  he  said.  "If  you  want  to  get  a  real 
feeling  of  leisure  and  independence,  a 
feeling  that  you  have  been  told  privately 
by  the  archangels  to  amuse  yourself  and 
do  nothing  whatever  else,  go  in  for  the 
tripos,  or  rather  wait  till  you  come  out.  I 
suppose  that  considering  my  years  I  have 
wasted  more  time  than  most  people,  and 
I  thought  I  knew  what  it  felt  like.  But  I 
did  n't.  I  had  no  idea  how  godlike  it  is 
to  do  nothing.  To  have  breakfast,  and 
feel  that  it  won't  be  lunch-time  for  four 
hours,  and  after  that  to  have  the  whole 
afternoon  before  you." 

"  When  are  the  lists  out  ?  " 

"  Oh,  in  about  ten  days  now.  Don't 
talk  about  lists.  Tell  me  how  long  you 
worked  this  morning.  Tell  me  about  the 
man  in  your  college  who  works  ten  hours 
every  day  and  eleven  hours  every  night. 
Tell  me  of  the  difficulty  of  learning  by 


The  Lists.  301 

heart  the  Roman  emperors  or  the  kings 
of  Israel  and  Judah.  Assure  me  that  by 
knowing  the  angle  of  the  sun  above  the 
horizon  and  the  length  of  Feltham's 
shadow,  you  could  find  out  how  tall  the 
umpire  is." 

"  He  's  about  five  foot  ten,"  said 
Reggie. 

"  That  's  like  the  answers  I  used  to 
give  to  the  questions  about  the  hands  of 
a  watch,"  said  the  Babe.  "  They  tell  you 
that  if  the  hands  of  a  watch  are  together 
at  twelve — there  's  no  'if  about  it,  it  is 
never  otherwise, — when  will  they  be  to- 
gether next.  I  always  said  about  five 
minutes  past  one.  It  seems  absurdly  sim- 
ple. I  've  often  noticed  them  together- 
then  :  and  the  same  remark  applies  to 
about  ten  minutes  past  two.  That  re- 
minds me,"  added  the  Babe,  looking  at 
his  watch,  "that  it  's  twenty-five  minutes 
past  five.  The  hour  hand  seems  to  have 
gained  a  little." 

"  Oh,  I  remember,"  said  Reggie.  "  The 
hour  hand  gains  seven-elevenths." 

"  Seven-elevenths  of  what  ? " 


302  The  Babe,  B.A. 

"  I  don't  know.  Of  the  answer,  I  sup- 
pose. I  should  n't  have  thought  it  was 
five  yet." 

"  But  it  is,  and  that  compels  us  to  de- 
cide between  tea  and  cricket." 

"  We  can  get  tea  in  the  pavilion. 
There  's  another  four." 

"  You  shall  give  me  a  hundred  to  one 
that  the  next  ball  is  not  a  wicket,"  said 
the  Babe. 

"In  pennies,  and  make  it  fifty." 

"  Done." 

A  very  audible  click,  and  an  appeal. 
Reggie  got  up  and  felt  in  his  pockets. 

"  I  should  have  been  ashamed  to  get 
out  to  a  ball  like  that.  You  '11  have  to 
pay  for  tea,  Babe.  There  you  are." 

"  Twopence  more,"  said  the  Babe. 

"  Not  if  I  went  to  the  stake  for  it, 
Hullo,  Ealing,  where  are  you  from? 
Ealing  's  got  a  glorious  post-tripos  face 
too.  He  really  deserves  to  be  able  to 
play  '  Praise  the  Lord,  ye  heavens,  adore 
Him,'  but  he  can't  even  now." 

"Composed  by  Mr.  Haydn,"  said  Ealing, 
"  and  performed  by  Mr.  Ealing.  It  con- 


The  Lists.  303 

tains  a  very  difficult  passage.  Your  left 
hand  has  to  go  to  the  left,  and  your  right 
hand  to  the  right.  You  feel  all  pulled  in 
two.  Babe,  the  tripos  is  the  noblest  of 
inventions.  I  think  I  shall  go  in  for  a 
second  part.  I  can  quite  understand  how 
the  lower  classes  get  in  such  boisterous 
spirits  on  bank  holidays  that  they  change 
hats  with  each  other." 

"  I  'd  change  hats  with — with  a  bishop," 
said  the  Babe,  looking  wildly  about  for 
suggestions. 

"  So  would  I.  Or  with  Longridge. 
He  wears  a  blue  cake  hat.  Hullo,  they  're 
all  out." 

"  Come  and  have  tea,  then,"  said  Reg- 
gie. "  The  Babe  stands  tea." 

"  Hang  the  expense,"  said  the  Babe, 
recklessly.  "  When  a  man  's  got  some 
tin,  what  can  he  do  better  than  to  give 
his  pals  a  real  blow  out  ?  I  've  got  four 
shillings.  Tea  for  three,  and  bread  and 
butter  for  two.  The  fortune  of  the  Roths- 
childs sprang  from  these  small  economies. 
Bread  and  butter  for  two  will  be  plenty. 
I  'm  sure  none  of  us  can  be  very  hungry 


304  The  Babe,  B.A. 

on  so  warm  a  day.  Oh,  there  's  a  tuft- 
hair  drinking  out  of  a  tall  glass.  I  expect 
it  's  gin-sling.  What  is  gin-sling  ?  In  any 
case  you  can't  say  it  ten  times.  Ging-slin." 

"  I  thought  you  could  always  say  Ran- 
jitsinghi,  Babe." 

"  I  can  when  other  people  are  just  un- 
able to.  Sufficient  champagne  gives  me 
a  wonderful  lucidity,  followed  by  sleepi- 
ness. There  's  Stewart.  I  did  n't  know 
he  came  to  cricket  matches." 

Stewart  was  delighted  to  see  them. 

"  But  you,  Babe,  are  not  fit  for  the 
society  of  ordinary  people,"  he  said,  "  your 
extreme  cheerfulness  since  your  tripos 
argues  a  want  of  consideration  for  others. 
What  have  you  been  doing  ?  " 

"  I  Ve  been  looking  at  cricket,  and  also 
talking." 

"  You  don't  say  so." 

"  I  have,  indeed,"  said  the  Babe.  "  What 
effect  does  champagne  have  on  you  ?  " 

"  Why  do  you  ask  these  sudden  ques- 
tions ?"  said  Stewart  wearily.  "  It  makes 
the  wings  of  my  soul  sprout." 

"  The   principle   is  the   same.      I    ate 


The  Lists.  305 

lobster  salad  the  other  day  and  drank 
port.  It  did  not  give  me  indigestion,  but 
acute  remorse." 

"  Remorse  for  having  done  so  ?  " 

"  No,  a  vague  searching  remorse  for  all 
the  foolish  things  I  had  done,  and  all  the 
foolish  things  I  meant  to  do,  and  for  being 
what  I  was.  Food  does  n't  affect  your 
body,  it  affects  your  soul.  Conversely, 
sermons  which  are  supposed  to  affect  your 
soul-make  you  hungry." 

Stewart  lit  a  match  thoughtfully  against 
the  sleeve  of  his  coat. 

"  The  Babe  has  hit  on  a  great  truth," 
he  said.  "  A  curious  instance  occurred 
to  my  knowledge  two  years  ago.  A 
strong  healthy  man  read  Robert  Elsmere. 
It  gave  him  so  severe  an  attack  of  dys- 
pepsia that  he  had  to  spend  the  ensuing 
winter  on  the  Riviera  and  eat  pepsine  in- 
stead of  salt  for  eighteen  months.  Then 
he  died.  The  phenomenon  is  well  estab- 
lished. Poor  Simpson,  the  fellow  of  my 
college,  as  you  know,  broke  his  leg  the 
other  day.  It  was  supposed  to  have  hap- 
pened because  he  tripped  and  fell  down- 


3o6  The  Babe,  B.A. 

stairs.  But  he  told  me  himself  that  he 
was  just  leaving  his  room,  and  that  as  he 
walked  down  stairs  he  read  the  first  few 
pages  of  Stephen  Remarx.  It  was  that, 
of  course,  that  broke  his  leg,  and  so  he 
fell  down  stairs  as  soon  as  he  tried  to  put 
it  to  the  ground.  The  Babe  is  quite 
right.  Sermons,  as  he  told  us,  make  him 
hungry  and  lobster  and  port  remorseful, 
In  the  same  way,  high  tea,  if  frequently 
taken,  will  make  anyone  a  non-conformist, 
in  the  same  way  as  incense  induces  Roman 
Catholicism.  But,  Babe,  don't  tell  Long- 
ridge." 

"Why  not?" 

"He  will  want  to  talk  about  it  to  me, 
and  then  I  shall  be  taken  with  melancholy 
madness.  Are  you  coming  up  for  another 
year,  Babe  ? " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  should  like  to.  Of 
course  it  will  depend  on  my  getting 
through.  If  I  do,  I  think  a  note  from  my 
tutor  to  my  father  might  have  a  whole- 
some effect." 

"  Your  tutor  will  do  whatever  you  wish 
him  to,"  said  Stewart.  "  At  present  he  is 


The  Lists.  307 

going  back  to  college.  I  have  a  hansom 
waiting  because  I  hate  walking.  Do  any 
of  you  want  a  lift  ?" 

The  others  stayed  up  till  stumps  were 
drawn,  and  walked  down  together.  The 
tea  no  doubt  had  affected  the  Babe's  soul 
in  some  subtle  manner,  producing  acute 
fatuity. 

The  Babe  spent  the  remaining  ten  days 
in  assiduous  inaction.  He  sat  in  canoes, 
he  sat  on  benches  watching  cricket,  he 
ate,  he  slept.  He  appeared  at  the  Senate 
house  on  the  morning  when  the  lists  were 
read  out,  in  pumps,  in  pink  pyjamas,  a 
long  great-coat,  and  a  straw  hat.  Reg- 
gie, who  stood  next  him,  thought  he 
detected  signs  of  nervousness,  when  the 
names  began  to  be  read,  but  it  is  probable 
that  he  was  mistaken,  for  the  Babe  had 
never  before  been  known  to  be  afflicted 
with  that  distressing  malady.  A  large  num- 
ber of  his  more  intimate  friends  were  there, 
and  an  air  of  suspense  was  abroad.  But 
it  was  over  sooner  than  any  one  antici- 
pated, for  the  Babe,  contrary  to  the  expec- 
tation of  even  the  most  sanguine  of  them 


308  The  Babe,  B.A. 

all,  and  that  was  himself,  came  out  first  in 
the  second  class.  There  was  one  mo- 
ment's pause  of  astonishment,  not  un- 
mingled  with  awe,  and  then  a  wild 
disorderly  scene  of  riot  and  shouting 
arose,  in  which  the  Babe  was  seized  and 
taken  back  to  Trinity  in  a  triumphal  pro- 
cession, which  carried  him  over  the  grass 
in  the  great  court,  wholly  disregarding 
the  porters  who  gibbered  helplessly  around 
them,  until  Stewart  appeared,  who,  how- 
ever, instead  of  instantly  stopping  it, 
seemed  to  take  sympathetic  interest  in 
the  proceeding. 

Later  in  the  day  he  wrote  a  charming 
letter  to  the  Babe's  father,  in  which  he 
congratulated  him  on  his  son's  brilliant 
success,  alluded  to  his  keen  historical 
instinct  and  his  vivid  grasp  of  events- 
whatever  a  vivid  grasp  may  be — and 
stated  (which  was  undoubtedly  true),  that 
if  certain  five  men  out  of  the  whole  Uni- 
versity had  not  happened  to  go  in  for  the 
same  tripos  the  same  year,  the  Babe 
would  infallibly  have  been  Senior  Histo- 
rian. 


The  Lists.  309 

An  answer  came  later  to  Stewart  and 
the  Babe.  The  latter's  was  short  but 
satisfactory.  Reggie  was  breakfasting 
with  him  when  the  post  came  in,  or  rather 
he  was  waiting  without  any  excess  of  pa- 
tience while  the  Babe,  whom  he  had  just 
pulled  out  of  bed,  explained  precisely  how 
it  was  that  he  was  not  dressed  yet,  and 
urged  him  not  to  begin,  or  if  he  insisted 
on  doing  so,  to  play  fair. 

At  this  moment  the  porter  entered  with 
the  letter,  and  the  Babe  snatched  it  from 
his  hand,  tore  it  open,  and  executed  a  pas 
seul  round  the  room,  until  he  stepped  on 
the  kettle  lid,  and  hurt  himself  very  much. 

"  The  Babe  B.A.  will  be  in  residence 
another  year,"  he  shouted.  "  You  may 
eat  all  the  breakfast,  if  you  like." 

Reggie  had  a  healthy  appetite,  and  the 
Babe  was  rather  plaintive  about  it. 

Stewart,  who  had  received  a  letter  from 
the  Babe's  father  by  the  same  post,  looked 
in  after  breakfast  with  congratulations. 

"  I  am  delighted,"  he  said,  "  but,  in  .a 
way,  disappointed,  and  for  this  reason  :  I 
was  looking  forward  to  your  denouement 


310  The  Babe,  B.A. 

with  some  interest,  and  I  should  have 
found  a  melancholy  pleasure  in  seeing 
how  you  would  make  your  exit  from 
Cambridge,  and  what  piece  of  extraordi- 
nary folly  would  have  been  your  last.  It 
seems  I  shall  have  to  wait  another  year 
for  that." 

"  Oh,  don't  mind  me,"  said  the  Babe, 
shrilly.  "  Say  you  're  sorry  I  'm  coming 
up  again  straight  out,  if  you  like." 

"  No.  On  the  whole,  I  don't  mind 
waiting  another  year,"  said  Stewart. 


THE  END. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  SERIES 

STORIES  OF  COLLEGE  LIFE 

I.  1foan>arO  Stories.     Sketches  of  the  Undergraduate. 

By  W.  K.  POST.     Fourth  edition.     121x10,  paper,  50 
cts.;  cloth      .......     $i  oo 

"  Mr.  Post's  manner  of  telling  these  tales  is  in  its  way  inimitable. 
The  atmosphere  of  the  book  in  its  relation  to  the  localities  where  the 
scenes  were  laid  is  well-nigh  perfect.  The  different  types  of  under- 
graduates are  clearly  drawn,  and  there  is  a  dramatic  element  in  most  of 
the  stories  that  is  very  welcome.  It  goes  without  saying  that  Harvard 
men  will  find  keen  pleasure  in  this  volume,  while  for  those  who  desire 
a  faithful  picture  of  certain  phases  of  American  student  life  it  offers  a 
noteworthy  fund  of  instruction  and  entertainment."  —  Literary  News. 

"  The  undergraduate  who  haunts  the  classic  shades  of  Cambridge  has 
often  been  sketched,  but  never  on  the  whole  with  so  much  piquancy 
and  fidelity  to  truth  as  by  Mr.  Post."  —  Boston  Beacon. 

"Not  since  the  days  of  Hammersmith  have  we  had  such  a  vivid 
picture  of  college  life  as  Mr.  W.  K.  Post  has  given  us  in  this  book. 
Unpretentious  in  their  style,  the  stories  are  mere  sketches,  yet  withal 
the  tone  is  so  genuine,  the  local  color  so  truly  '  crimson,'  as  to  make  the 
book  one  of  unfailing  interest."  —  Literary  World. 

II.  J^alC  Harris.     By  J.  S.  WOOD.     Illustrated,  ramo. 

$r  oo 

"  College  days  are  regarded  by  most  educated  men  as  the  cream  of 
their  lives,  sweet  with  excellent  flavor.  They  are  not  dull  and  tame,  even 
to  the  most  devoted  student,  and  this  is  a  volume  filled  with  the  pure 
cream  of  such  existence,  and  many  '  a  college  joke  to  cure  the  dumps' 
is  given.  It  is  a  bright,  realistic  picture  of  college  life,  told  in  an  easy 
conversational,  or  descriptive  style,  and  cannot  fail  to  genuinely  interest 
the  reader  who  has  the  slightest  appreciation  of  humor.  The  volume  is 
illustrated  and  is  just  the  book  for  an  idle  or  lonely  hour."  —  Los  AngeUs 
Times. 


III.  UbC  iJBabC,  35.H.     Stories  of  Life  at  Cambridge 

University.     By  EDWARD  F.  BENSON. 

IV.  H  IPrinCCtOnian.     A  Story  of  Undergraduate  Life 

at  the  College  of  New  Jersey.     By  JAMES  BARNES. 
(In  press.  ) 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS, 

NEW  YORK.  LONDON. 


Ubree  Botable  DBoofes 

The  Red  Republic.  A  Romance  of  the  Commune. 
By  ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS,  author  of  "  The  King  in 
Yellow,  etc.  Second  Edition.  Large  12°,  $1.25. 

"  With  all  its  rush  and  excitement  there  is  a  solid  basis  of  pains- 
taking and  thoughtf ulness  in  '  The  Red  Republic.'  Mr.  Chambers 
is  wholly  free  from  self-consciousness  ;  indeed  his  gifts  seem  to  be 
little  short  of  genius.  Wonderfully  vivid  and  graphic." — N.  Y. 
Press. 

"  Mr.  Chambers  shows  great  familiarity  with  the  many  dreadful 
days  of  1871,  and  Mr.  Thiers'  policy  is  critically  examinedf  '  The 
Red  Republic '  abounds  in  action." — N.  Y.  Times. 

1  '  The  Red  Republic '  has  the  healthy  ring  of  a  young  man's 
book.  Mr.  Chambers  can  do  what  few  men  can  do,  he  can  tell  a 
story." — N.  Y.  Journal. 

"  I  do  not  think  that  one  need  hesitate  to  call  *  The  Red  Re- 
public '  the  best  American  novel  of  the  year." — VANCE  THOMPSON 
in  N.  Y.  Morning  Advertiser. 

"  The  book  will  commend  itself  not  only  for  its  strength  and 
vividness,  but  for  imagination  and  fancy.  .  .  .  Glow  with 

§entle  beauty  and  romance,  putting  in  striking  contrast  the  bar- 
arity  of  war." — DROCH  in  N.  Y.  Life. 

A  King  and  a  Few  Dukes.  A  Romance.  By 
ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS,  author  of  "  The  Red  Re- 
public." Large  12°,  $1.25. 

"  No  superior  fiction  has  appeared  in  months.  .  .  .  It  is  a 
charming  love  story,  attractively  told  in  a  way  that  is  essentially 
Mr.  Chambers'  own." — N.  Y.  Times. 

"  A  more  charming,  wholly  (?  Rightful  story,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  name  in  the  whole  range  of  English  fiction.  That  is  saying 
much,  but  not  one  bit  more  than  the  L^ok  deserves.  .  .  .  The 
characters  are  wonderfully  well  drawn." — N.  Y.  World. 

"  This  latest  of  Mr.  Chambers'  stories  is  written  in  a  very 
charming  manner,  and  with  all  the  grace  and  finish  that  have 
made  the  writings  of  the  author  so  popular  during  the  past." — 
Albany  Union. 

The  Maker  of  Moons.  By  ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS. 
Large  12°.  (In  Press.) 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


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